


The Right Thing

by m4xw3ll



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Strange Academy
Genre: Fluff and Angst, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mutual Pining, Spider-Man: Far From Home (Movie) Spoilers, You've been warned, also Harley is chaotic good, i have a plan, more fluff than angst though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-10
Updated: 2020-05-23
Packaged: 2021-03-02 23:48:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 36,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24115276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/m4xw3ll/pseuds/m4xw3ll
Summary: Spider-Man's identity has been uncovered. And of course Peter panics, which results in him leaving New York City for a while to lie low and get his shit together. Fortunately, there's room at Harley's house, which is only mildly weird because Peter has a crush on him. But he is happy to have peace in rural Tennessee. Until Harley and Peter come up with a plan to restore Spider-Man's good reputation.
Relationships: Harley Keener/Peter Parker
Comments: 38
Kudos: 140
Collections: Spider-Man Public Identity Reveal





	1. Further Away

**Author's Note:**

> So I re-watched Spider-Man: Far From Home recently and I still love Mysterio to death. #1 villain. And I couldn't get the fallout that will eventually happen out of my mind, so have a whole fic on this.
> 
> I'll just have y'all know that in my version of canon, the romance with Peter and MJ never happened.

Peter panicked a lot, he knew that. But at least this time it was justified. Seeing his picture on the big screen like that, being exposed as Spider-Man … being made out to be a _murderer_. He couldn't even begin to imagine what the hell was going on right now. His head was full of horrible scenarios, which grew in number by the second.

He looked from the big screen with his admittedly awkward picture to the people around him. A few of them stared back, squinting at him or just with their mouth agape in shock. He needed to get out of here, and fast. As Peter turned on the lamppost, he heard sirens in the distance. Maybe, probably someone reported him and the police were on their way to catching him?

Peter shot his webs at the nearest building and pulled himself up in the air, swinging away from the horrendous scene as fast as he could. He needed to get home, to get away from the streets – but what good would that do him? Everyone knew who he was now, and it wasn't too hard to find out where he lived. He needed to get to aunt May as fast as possible and think of … something!

He almost crashed into his bedroom window, climbing through it and not really caring how much noise he made. Hands shaking, Peter pulled off his mask and stormed into the living room. Aunt May was on the phone and turned to look at him right as Peter came panting inside.

"There you are!" She yelled, one hand still holding the cellphone to her ear and her other arm outstretched to pull Peter in a tight hug as soon as he was close enough. "No, Happy, he's here. He's … he's not safe, is he?"

Hearing the panic in May's voice was worse than feeling it himself, Peter decided. He never wanted to worry May, he just wanted to keep his neighborhood as safe as possible. He had the means to, so it was just natural to step up … it being twisted around like that and making him out to be a horrible person was never something that occurred to Peter.

He could faintly hear Happy's voice through May's phone, telling her to stay calm and he would talk to Pepper where the safest place could be right now. Peter started shaking. Or maybe he had been the whole time and only now noticed, pressed close to May and fists clenching her shirt. "What am I gonna do now?" He asked quietly.

"It'll be fine." May stroked his hair. "We're getting through this."

And Peter wanted to believe her, he really did. It was just so … surreal. His fight or flight instinct was locked in panic and he wanted to run away as far as possible, somewhere where nobody had even heard of Spider-Man or would recognize his face. Tears welled up in his eyes and made them burn. Hadn't he gone through enough? The summer wasn't even over and he got into one trouble after another, messing up everything he touched.

Peter practically jumped as he heard his own cellphone ring. He let go of May and fished it out of a hidden pocket he had taken the liberty to include into his suit. It wasn't Ned's ringtone, and sure enough the picture on the screen didn't show MJ. Peter frowned as he answered.

"What the fuck, Parker?" Harley greeted him in a flat tone.

Peter blinked the tears away and tried to sound as calm as possible. "Hi there," he greeted back, but his voice cracked and gave away his confusion and panic and all the other messy feelings inside him.

"No, seriously, what the hell is going on in this fucked up city of yours?" Harley continued without even acknowledging that Peter had said something. "You know, I keep tabs on all of you. It's just a little hobby and usually, it doesn't yield much. But the past week, you called me – no, wait, _I_ called _you_ in all of _three_ European cities and then you're on the news for supposedly committing first-degree murder. Care to explain?"

Peter's wide eyes searched the living room floor for an answer, then looked up at his aunt. On the phone with Happy, probably to do some damage control. His friends thinking … well, _something_. And Harley rambled on and on about all of his failures. Peter's barely held-together facade cracked. "I'm sorry," he practically sobbed into the phone. "I didn't … I didn't do anything they said I did. I messed up, yeah, big time. But I'd never –"

"No, the question wasn't if you _would_ ," Harley interrupted him. "You wouldn't. Everyone who knew you for five seconds could see that. The question is why someone would fuck you over this bad. You must have done something right, I guess. Being quiet and compliant doesn't get you haters."

Peter wiped away the tears with his free hand. "Yeah, well, that doesn't do me any good now, anyways."

He didn't even know what he expected Harley to do or say. Sure, they had become some kind of … acquaintances? Maybe even friends? After the funeral where Pepper introduced them, they kept in touch. And Harley had been worried after the water elemental showed up in Venice, and he was fuming that Peter put himself in that much danger in Prague. And having to explain everything after what happened in London on the way to the airport was weird, to say the least. But it felt good to talk to someone who had experienced some of this himself, even if Harley had been way younger than Peter was now. Sometimes he thought Harley had been much smarter at ten than he was now at sixteen. And maybe he adored the guy way more than was good for him, even though Peter stuffed those kinds of thoughts into the back of his mind most of the time.

"What do I do now?" Peter asked, not sure if it was directed at Harley or at May.

"You need to calm down, and cut back on the caffeine a little," Harley said as if he had been waiting for that question.

"Stop worrying," May answered at the same time. She directed Peter on the couch and sat down next to him. "Happy's figuring it out. You're gonna be fine."

Peter stared at the wall next to the TV. He didn't believe May's words for one second, and Harley wasn't helpful, either. "I need to get out of here, right?" He said while putting Harley on speaker. He wasn't sure if he could continue to hold the cellphone with the way his hands were shaking, so he dropped it on the coffee table. May took a look at the screen before leaning back and putting her arms around Peter again. Peter grabbed her arms with both hands and let himself be rocked just the way he liked as a kid. "I mean, I couldn't possibly stay here. If people believe all that, and they're gonna come for me, and then you're here, too …" He choked on the dark turn his thoughts had taken.

"Happy's coming over," May said and Peter could feel her stroking his hair. "I won't let anything happen to you. Or me, for that matter. If push comes to shove, you could stay at the Aven…"

"Please don't say Avengers compound, because they still haven't finished rebuilding it," Peter interrupted her softly. "I don't have anywhere to go where I wouldn't put any of you in danger."

How long until the police showed up to arrest him? How long until anything else happened and destroyed his life for good? What if it didn't even hit him directly, but hurt May or his friends? Peter screwed his eyes shut, trying to keep the tears at bay.

"Hey, Parker," Harley said all of a sudden. "Ever been to Tennessee?"

*

Peter's first time on anything resembling a plane had been on the spaceship that took them to Thanos' planet. Which, quite frankly, hadn't ended well for him. And then again on his way to Europe, which … hadn't ended well, either. Peter wondered what sort of things waited for him in Tennessee with Harley, though he found it hard to imagine that he would ever hurt him. Then again, Peter didn't know what to believe anymore.

He told MJ and Ned as much as he returned one hell of a lot missed calls and about a thousand texts from them, wondering where he was and if he was fine. Sitting with his legs up on the seat in the quinjet, May and Happy opposite him while the plane was on autopilot, he typed away and told them he was okay. And didn't disclose his location, just like Happy requested.

Peter: _sorry, can't tell you anything else_

MJ: _why not?_

Ned: _you're worrying us_

Ned: _what's gonna happen now?_

Ned: _are you a fugitive??_

MJ: _you can't ask people if they're fugitives_

MJ: _you never know who's listening in!_

Peter frowned at the last question. "Am I a fugitive?" He repeated quietly, not really sure how to answer this. Technically, the Sokovia Accords were still in place as far as he knew, though Peter doubted they held real power anymore after everything that had happened. And not disclosing his identity should have put him on a government list or two, anyways. Then again, he wasn't up to date with stuff that was way over his pay-grade – and he didn't even have a Spider-Man Patreon or Ko-Fi.

"Technically, you're not even an adult, so nobody can hold you responsible," May answered and looked so sure of herself, Peter really wanted to believe that.

Happy shot her a frown. "Technically, people believe he's a cold-blooded murderer, adult or not."

"But I'm not!" Peter protested, putting his phone away. "I would never –"

"Hey," Happy held up both hands. "We're not the ones you need to convince."

"He doesn't need to convince anyone." May scowled. "Except this fake reporter, and _he_ certainly doesn't count." Her expression softened as she leaned forward and put a hand on Peter's knee. "We just need to wait a little until everything dies down and then you can explain yourself."

"It'll make you more suspicious that you ran away first, though," Happy interjected, which prompted May to slap his arm lightly. "I'm just saying the truth! Have you ever met someone like Thaddeus Ross? He's still pushing for the Sokovia Accords to be reinstated."

"He doesn't need to hear that right now!"

Peter sighed. "No, I mean, he's right," he mumbled, but May and Happy started squabbling over technicalities and possibilities and he didn't have any fight left in him right now. Much less any desire to be heard. He wanted to curl up into a blanket burrito, watch trash movies with Ned and MJ and text Harley all evening, anyways.

He should be far more excited to see Harley. If the circumstances were different, he would be. Running up and down the quinjet, fixing his hair, checking in his phone's front camera if there was anything between his teeth, maybe discreetly smelling himself. All the weird things that became completely normal when someone was about to meet their crush. Yet Peter still sat in his seat, not moving at all, until they arrived in Tennessee. His thoughts still ran wild and he internally did the same, but his body was exhausted. He wanted to sleep for three days straight and then some more.

May sighed as the quinjet touched down in the middle of nowhere. At least that's what Peter first thought they were, but it seemed to be a small town. As a New Yorker, this aspect was the most terrifying thing he'd ever seen, screw Thanos.

Apparently, May thought the same. "Are you sure we're in the right place?"

"The coordinates don't lie," Happy assured her, but still went to the cockpit to check. "No, yeah, we're in the right place!"

May frowned and looked at Peter. "Are you sure you want to stay here?" She put a hand on Peter's shoulder. "You know we'll always support you, so if you feel that is the right decision, you can make it."

"Well …" Peter shrugged, not really sure what to say to that. Did he _want_ to be here? Technically, yes. He wanted to see Harley and spend time with him. Did he want to be here for the reasons he boarded the quinjet? Hell, no. But he didn't know what else to do, how to keep his thoughts straight – well, as straight as they could be within a teenager's head who was anything but.

"We can still turn around," May offered.

But Peter shook his head. "I can't. I'd just be endangering you and my friends and I can't have that." To be honest, he didn't know if this was how it worked. Peter had never had his identity revealed to the world before. Maybe there were rules? He didn't know, and until he figured out how to undo it or work with it or whatever, it was best not to take risks.

"Fine. Come here."

Peter stood and immediately got pulled into a tight hug. He wasn't sure for how long this would be the last hug May would give him, so he clung to her to preserve the feeling. Tears welled up in his eyes again, but the moment broke as soon as there was a knock on the door. Peter pulled away, frowning.

The door opened and Harley stepped in, messy hair and run-down clothes, a half-shouldered backpack that definitely had seen better days and a half-smile, and Peter's heart fluttered despite the circumstances. He looked exactly like he did in their late-night Skype conversations, save the energy drinks on his desk and his little sister yelling stuff from outside his room. And by all the gods, real or not, Peter had missed him. His smile felt weak and fake, but he still couldn't help it.

Harley ran a hand through his hair and looked around briefly. "I skipped school for this and all you brought was a quinjet?"

Peter barked out a quiet laugh. "Well, all my other stuff got blown up in Europe."

"I'll have you know this is a million-dollar-plane," Happy said and closed the door to the cockpit. "And we're not exactly on holiday, so what did you expect?"

"Chill." Harley's smile never wavered and he greeted Happy and May with a quick wave of his hand. He stepped up to Peter, who had grabbed his own backpack from under his seat, and put his arm around him. Harley still had at least two inches on him. "I'll take the consolation prize, then."

"You treat him good," May said in that kind of tone she used to suggest she would gladly commit murder and get away with it than let anything happen to Peter. He couldn't help be grateful for all the support and okay, yeah, maybe he quickly rubbed his eyes. What was wrong with him, why couldn't he be anything else than a hormonal teenager in an identity crisis?

"Promise," Harley said and despite his smile, he sounded sincere. "Guess I need to tell mum we're having a guest."

Peter focused more on the weird southern aspect that was even weirder to Harley because he made it sound charming. His words only registered as the guy led him outside the quinjet and they were halfway down what seemed to be a street. Well, more like flattened dirt and Peter could already feel it get into his clothes. He stopped dead in his tracks.

"Wait, you haven't told your mum?"

Harley half-smiled again, then bit his lip. "She'd have ripped off my head. She doesn't do that in front of guests, mostly."

Peter looked down, still feeling the weight of Harley's arm around him. And being able to smell him. Which was weird, because it was a mixture of freshly mowed grass and … motor oil? And maybe some deodorant, which got overpowered by the small-city-smell all around them. And all he wanted to do was hug Harley and tell him how grateful he was, but that would be even weirder than actually being here.

"C'mon." Harley pulled Peter a little closer and forced him to continue walking. "I know what'll brighten your mood."

Peter frowned a little, but followed along. The quinjet had touched down right at the edge of the town. Not very subtly, but the view was quite worth it; Peter could see farms and lots of green all around them, and sure, the town looked a little like a run-down Wild Western movie set with a Seven-Eleven, but it was charming in it's own way. Nothing compared to NYC, even though Peter felt one had to hate the city to really appreciate it, but it was Harley's home and for that alone, he was willing to give it the benefit of doubt.

*

Also Harley was right. The garage full of state of the art Stark tech did impress Peter greatly. So much, in fact, that he couldn't help but drop the backpack right at the door and walk through the garage that was even bigger than their living room in NYC. Peter had never been in this kind of room before, much less Harley's own. There was a sofa and a hammock in the corner, which suggested Harley spent more nights down here than was probably healthy for his sleep cycle, and on the couch laid what looked like … some kind of weapon.

"What. Is. This?" Peter pointed, not really sure if it was dangerous or why Harley would have that thing. He frowned, not sure what to make of it, if he was being threatened again or not – which was stupid. This was Harley's place, apart from his and aunt May's apartment maybe the safest place he could be right now.

"Oh," Harley said as he stepped up to Peter and threw their backpacks on the couch next to the … thing. "That's my potato gun, mark VII."

"Your what?"

"Ugh. City people." Harley shook his head, then picked up the gun and showed it to Peter. "It's what it says on the tin. It shoots potatoes."

"What?" Peter frowned. "Why?"

Why Harley laughed, he didn't know. But he looked happy and confident with his … potato gun and Peter didn't want to question it too much. He also shouldn't stare too long, but he hadn't even seen Harley on a screen since he returned from Europe. And to see him live, standing right next to him so close Peter could touch him, was an extra distraction bonus.

"Let's get your stuff upstairs," Harley said, eventually pulling Peter out of his own head again.

Harley's room in the main house wasn't as impressive tech-wise, but filled with his own stuff he freely shared with Peter. The desk was a mess of homework, a Rubik's Cube, and some smaller engineering projects Harley seemed to tinker with, the walls were filled with so many movie posters Peter couldn't even make out what color it was supposed to be and a half-open closet spilled out lots and lots of clothes on the floor where they littered basically everything except the unmade bed. The dark furniture seemed not to be Harley's choice; it wasn't quite his style. But he had made it his own with a few stickers on the bedposts, the closet and even the shelves next to the desk, littered with books and a few DVDs.

Peter only noticed that he was staring while standing in the open door when Harley turned around to him after dumping his own backpack on a small desk chair. "I haven't had time to clean up," he explained while quickly picking up some of the clothes and throwing them into an overflowing laundry basket at the foot of the bed.

"It's fine," Peter said, holding up both hands, "don't worry about it."

He gingerly stepped inside and checked his backpack, pulling out the Edith glasses to make sure they had survived the trip. Before he could shove them back in between what was left of his own closet, Harley had stepped next to him. "You need glasses?"

"Not really, not anymore." Peter shook his head. "They're … a gift from Mr. Stark. I mean, they not just glasses, obviously, you know how he can be, but he …" He trailed off, not quite sure how to explain. Not sure if he even _should_ explain. He'd tried once and got stabbed in the back in the cruelest way possible.

Either Harley sensed his hesitation, or he felt weird talking about this stuff, too. "Yeah, no, I know, Tony left me some stuff, too," he said, patting Peter on the back. "Pepper came around to get it to me. It's …"

"… yeah," Peter nodded, and they fell silent for a minute. "Wait, you called him Tony?"

"You didn't?" Harley looked back at him and laughed. "Well, okay, I tried to emotionally blackmail him, too, and it sort of worked?"

Peter raised both eyebrows. "Explain," he demanded and dropped down onto the bed. For a few seconds, he wanted to curl up into a ball and hug the pillow like he would with Harley if the guy would let him, but instead he kicked off his shoes and made himself as comfortable as possible.

"So you remember those terrorists and the fake news Tony died?" Harley sat down next to him and if Peter shifted a little so it looked like he got more comfortable but could also sit closer to Harley, well, neither of them said anything about it.

Their experiences getting to know Mr. Stark were wildly different and Peter couldn't help but laugh about the way Harley talked about it. And about what a shitty kid he'd been, lost and alone and still full of confidence and wits, just like today, only now he'd grown more into himself. Peter leaned a little against Harley while laughing and Harley's probably accidental touches didn't go unnoticed, either.

Right up until Peter almost jumped all the way to the ceiling when there came a knock on the door and a girl stuck her head in. She had the same weird brownish-blonde hair as Harley, all up in a messy bun and a similar clothing style to Harley, and the raised eyebrow and the following disgusted face spoke volumes. "Muuum!" She cried out. "Harley has his boyfriend over!"

Peter couldn't help but look down so his blush wasn't obvious. "I'm not," he tried mumbling an explanation, but Harley cut him off.

"Muuum!" He yelled even louder than his sister. "Theo's an asshole again!"

Peter blinked, finally looking up. _That_ was Theodora? As in, Harley's baby sister he constantly complained about? They were so alike look-wise that they could have been twins save for the obvious age difference.

"Muuum!" Theodora shouted back. "He's calling me that stupid name again!" She stuck her head back into the room.

"I've already texted mum," Harley said, which prompted his sister to stick her tongue out at him.

Then she faced Peter. "You gotta be Pete, right?" She came in, an obscure over-sized band shirt tucked into black hotpants and combat boots kicking a jeans out of the way. "Harley's talking about you, like, _all the time_. Thought you'd look way better from what he –"

She couldn't finish her sentence, even though Peter now was super curious – Pete? – as Harley threw a pillow in her face. "Get out!" He shouted, crawling off the bed and wrestling his sister into a headlock.

"Hey, asshole," she complained and slapped his arm with both palms. "Let me talk to –"

And with that, she was out the door, which Harley shut into her face. He was kind of red in the face, too, but Peter couldn't say why. "Sorry, that's … my sister, I guess."

Theodora banged on the door. "Asshole!" She yelled. "Mum said to come down for dinner! Stop making out, you weirdos!"

Peter put both hands over his face so nobody would notice his blush creeping back up. "I'm so sorry," Harley mumbled. "Just … ignore her?"

"Mhm," Peter mumbled, not really sure what to make out of the whole situation. Maybe Theodora could read minds and wanted to embarrass him? Or maybe she was just a dick to her brother? Anyways, she hit the bullseye more than once and that was a pretty good quota.

Another knock on the door.

"Harley?" A much more mature voice, female too.

Harley turned around and opened the door again. "Is Theo grounded?"

"You should be for bringing over a boy on short notice," the woman said. Her hair was straight-up blonde, probably dyed, but the facial features clearly marked her as Harley and Theodora's mother.

Peter scrambled to stand up, self-consciously tugging at his clothes and trying out a smile which made his face kind of hurt. "Hi, sorry for the short notice," he said, stepping up next to Harley and holding out his hand. "Peter. Uh, Peter Parker. I'm a –"

"Oh, Pete!" The woman smiled and pushed his hand aside to hug him. "Glad to finally put a name to the stories!"

Peter wondered what the hell Harley had been talking about – well, him, obviously, but … he couldn't grasp this concept. Why would he do that? And why would everyone call him by that _Pete_ name Harley usually only used late at night when he was already half-asleep on his desk?

"Feel free to stay as long as you want," Harley's mum said as she finally let go of him again. She still wore something Peter could identify as a waitress uniform. "If I had known earlier, I'd have picked up some more food from the store. Oh, and call me Pam – short for Pamela." She ruffled his hair, then looked at Harley. "And you, clean your room. I can smell your laundry all the way to the kitchen.

Well, at least Peter wasn't the only one constantly turning red in the face today. Harley even seemed kind of embarrassed. Which was unusual; he was so cool most of the time, like nothing could shake him. Now he looked around his room again and then shoved Peter and his mum out of the door, closing it behind him. "Yeah, later. You said dinner?"


	2. Breaking News

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote most of this in the middle of the night on a sugar high. But hey, at least I learned how to edit my stuff!

Even though Peter had only been in Rose Hill for two days by now, lounging around in Harley's garage had become a favorite pastime. He didn't have anything else to take his mind off things, and having blanket permission to use almost all computers and engineering projects Harley had lying around was more than enough to keep himself occupied.

Until Theodora came into the garage when Harley was still at school, threw herself on the couch and talked to him. No word about him being Spider-Man – Peter wasn't quite sure if Harley had told his family, but he guessed not – and not even a word about why he was staying with them. More like, "do you know this song?" and "hey, what the fuck is this?" and then showing him a pic of the Vessel, probably the ugliest building in New York by Peter's standards.

Peter indulged her. He got comfortable in Harley's hammock and showed her pictures of NYC, mostly some of the prettier buildings, and explained where he was swinging by at the time. Apparently, the typical New Yorker was quite strange. Considering Theodora had never really gotten out of town, Peter couldn't blame her curiosity. He didn't dare go outside, but everything he'd seen of the town Harley lived in was … strange. People still drove like they had a really good vehicular manslaughter defense attorney, but the streets weren't crammed with cars and traffic jams seemed to be not that big of a problem. Also most of the people seemed to know each other. Peter had lived in his apartment before the Snap for _years_ and hadn't known most of his neighbors by looks, much fewer even by names other than 'the junkie upstairs' or 'the nice lady with the dogs'.

Theodora leaned a little further over to him as she examined a picture Peter had taken from the roof of 1717 Broadway – yes, even Spider-Man went sightseeing every now and then, shut up – and looked back at him. "Was it hard getting up there?"

Peter frowned at the question. What could he say to that? Not particularly, given the fact that he could literally walk up some walls and tried not to disturb the guests in the hotel and … he shrugged. "I guess not?"

"Right," Theodora leaned back. "You got your webs and all that stuff."

Peter's jaw dropped. "Uh … what?"

"Yeah, well." Theodora waved a hand around. "Being Spider-Man has its perks, I guess. Don't look at me like that! Harley's a fan, I figured it out, like, a _looong_ time ago. Also I watch the news."

Peter felt a blush creeping up on his face. "I – I don't know what –"

"I won't tell mum, promise," Theodora interrupted him and grinned. She almost looked as mischievous as Harley, save for the accent which was much stronger with her. "Guess she doesn't follow weird New Yorker blogs. One condition, though."

At that point, Peter didn't know whether to be shocked, embarrassed or curious. What was that about Harley being a fan? And why did it have everything to do with Theodora figuring out he was Spider-Man? That wasn't the question he asked, though. "What condition?"

"You," she poked him in the chest with a sharp finger, "gotta treat my brother good."

Before Peter could say or do anything, much less ask what the hell she meant by that, the garage door opened and closed again with a bang. "I'm home!" Harley announced and Peter heard the familiar _thud_ of a backpack hitting the floor only to be forgotten for the rest of the day. "Peter? You in here?"

"Would you have shouted even if I wasn't?" Peter practically jumped up from the hammock and ran over. "Also why does your sister know? She said –"

"Hold on." Harley put both hands on Peter's shoulders. "What's going on this time?"

"Oh, I told him I knew he was Spider-Man," Theodora had the audacity to pipe up from the couch, tapping away on her phone. "And he didn't even deny it for a second."

"You absolute _dumbass_ ," Harley sighed. "Can't you even pretend to be surprised when people figure you out?"

Peter blinked at him. He didn't know if it was appropriate to touch Harley, too, or whatever it meant that he was doing, but he didn't want him to stop. He also couldn't process what the hell was going on again. "I tried?"

If he was completely honest, he didn't even know how to react anymore. Aunt May seeing him has been a shock, and also the only time he willingly said 'fuck' out loud, and Ned was a given as his best friend. Nick Fury knew, of course, because _it was Nick Fury_ , and the rest of the Avengers and … well, their associates, Peter had never been afraid of them, including Harley. MJ had been weird, and Mysterio, or Quentin Beck, or whatever he wanted Peter to call him … it destroyed him. Literally. Maybe he was just tired.

"You didn't do shit except stare like an idiot," Harley figured out after about two seconds, which made Peter wonder just how much attention the guy paid to him to be able to figure him out that easily. "Anyways, I got work to do. Theo, get out."

"No!" She yelled. "I don't wanna!"

"And I don't wanna babysit you!"

"You don't have to!"

"You're arguing like a baby!"

"Only because you do it, too." Theodora pulled out headphones from her jeans pocket and shoved Harley with her shoulder on her way out.

Peter looked at the closed door, then back to Harley. "Should I …?"

"Oh, no, you can stay," Harley said and slid into a chair in front of a two monitor computer and pulled up what looked like blueprints. "Theo never gets this stuff and I hate explaining it to her. Wanna look?"

Peter stepped closer. Yes, definitely blueprints. He stood so close behind Harley that it would be weird not to touch him, he guessed. But also it would be, because … well, Peter didn't know why. He crossed his arms on Harley's shoulders and rested his head on top of them. "Is that an Arc reactor blueprint?"

"Better." Harley shook his head and Peter felt strands of his hair brushing against his cheek. And it was so soft he immediately wanted to run his hands through it. "This is my ticket to the MIT."

"What?"

"You see, it's an improved Arc reactor." Harley looked at him and his grin widened. "My project to get a scholarship at the MIT and then graduate and earn good money to support my mum and Theo."

"What?" Peter blinked, not really believing what he was hearing. "Miss Potts would offer you a job right out of school if you gave her those!"

Harley's grin faded a little. "I don't know."

"Dude! You do realize what you're doing here?" Peter pointed at the screen. "This is revolutionary! This could be accessible to so many people and improve their lives, we wouldn't need fuels anymore and –"

Harley laughed, which made Peter stop in his ranting. "I know, dummy," he said, but not in his usual condescending or aloof tone, but rather … sweetly. "I just gotta find a way how we can't weaponize it."

Peter couldn't help but return his soft smile. That was so Harley. "I think you should talk to Miss Potts, anyways."

*

Even after almost a week of staying with Harley, the news were still full of Spider-Man coverage. Apparently, Peter actually was a fugitive by now, but May assured him she was fine after a bit of questioning and denying Peter was anything than a normal teenager visiting a friend over the rest of the summer. Her calls were short and mostly during breaks on work, but she texted Peter in the evening. Just like MJ and Ned.

Ned: _do you know when you'll be back_

MJ: _or are you staying with Harley forever_

MJ: _run off with him?_

Their texts were much more embarrassing. Luckily, Harley still hadn't come to bed, so Peter laid on his side and didn't try to imagine too hard what it would be like to just … never come back. Live in this town for forever. Which was scary, because he already missed New York to death.

Peter: _dude no_

Peter: _I'm not doing stupid shit_

MJ: _…_

Ned: _yeah, you wish_

Peter: _what am I missing anyways?_

Ned: _well we got taken in for questioning, but I think it went fairly well_

MJ: _you almost cried_

MJ: _not much else, school's still out and holidays are boring_

Ned: _speak for yourself, I got a new Star Wars book_

MJ: _nerd_

Peter smiled at his screen. He missed being with his friends so, _so_ much. He closed the tabs with the NYC news, 'Who has seen Spider-Man?', 'Is Peter Parker on the Run?', and a piece on him about Fox News with alleged connections to some weird people being declared as villains.

Worry threatened to overflow his senses again, like so often in the past few days. Rose Hill felt like it had been his makeshift home for literal years by now. Sure, May called every day – multiple times, in fact – and Ned and MJ had their phones out, ready to text, basically every time Peter felt like it. But it wasn't the same. He couldn't just swing by, and he couldn't call and talk to them and then meet up at the nearest Taco Bell, get some food and go watch a movie together.

Instead he was confined to a house and garage in … well, the middle of nowhere. Or as Harley had put it, Hickfuckville. Which sounded about right. It wasn't that Peter couldn't go out, but he was afraid. What if someone would recognize him? What if they would call the police? Or SHIELD? Or … well, he didn't know. And he frankly couldn't keep track of who wanted to know his whereabouts.

Peter: _I'm gonna go check on Harley_

MJ: _hasn't your boyfriend come to bed?_

Peter regretted telling her that because they both didn't sleep nearly as much as they should, they hadn't bothered putting up an air mattress in Harley's room. They mostly crashed on the hammock and couch or shared the bed for one or two hours. He got up, resisting the urge to roll around in the sheets and breathe in Harley's scent some more.

Of course Harley was still wide awake, blueprints pulled up on the computer and what looked like an even smaller prototype of the Arc reactor on one of the desks. The only difference was that this one wasn't finished yet and had a more octagon shape. He fiddled with a delicate metal part and a really small screwdriver and Peter tried to toe around him silently.

"What'cha doin' here, Pete?" Harley asked in a flat, distracted tone, never taking his eyes off his project.

Peter was glad he wasn't looking, because his cheeks burnt with the nickname Harley had given him. They shouldn't, it wasn't that _special_ , but it came from Harley and he mostly said it when he wasn't thinking and … Peter couldn't do much to contain himself except press his palms against each other. "You're not sleeping. Don't you have a test tomorrow?"

"Mhm," Harley mumbled, frowned and bent over the desk a little further. His hair looked messy and Peter resisted the urge to touch it, to keep it from his eyes.

In the background, Peter saw the same news on silent he had just closed on his phone. At least two of three extra monitors in the corner opposite the hammock connected to a different work station and usually showed news, filtered for all the aliases and private names Harley knew. Which were an impressive lot, but then again they had stayed at Pepper's cabin after the funeral for a few days and gotten to meet a lot of people.

"You know, that looks seriously impressive," Peter said as he sat down in front of the monitors. Carol Danvers' picture showed, her arm around a young black woman and something about a Pegasus (or a plane?), whatever that meant, and the green woman from the battle against Thanos being searched for, and even a Buzzfeed Unsolved episode about … Peter Quill. Peter's eyes almost popped out of his sockets in surprise.

Harley didn't respond at first. Then, Peter turned around as he heard the screwdriver hit the desk. "Yeah, no," Harley shook his head. "It's not nearly enough yet."

"Huh?"

Harley rolled his chair over so they sat next to each other. "I'm currently just filtering the most basic news, and not even worldwide." He pouted at the screens. "Stupid security measures."

Peter raised an eyebrow. "Why, though?"

"Well, why not?" Harley looked back at him with an expression like he couldn't believe that question even needed answering. "You've seen what happened to the world – well, how it had changed after we came back. Maybe if we'd been prepared better, if Iron Man and Captain America hadn't been fighting –"

"They were doing what they thought was right," Peter interrupted.

But Harley quickly held up a hand. "Not my point, Pete." He sighed heavily, his shoulders dropped and he looked really, really tired all of a sudden. "If people hadn't been fighting, if they'd had a little more time, a little more clues about who to call and where they were … you know, maybe it wouldn't have come to all that. You know what my mum went through those five years? Well, I don't, and I'm her kid. But she lost Theo and me and honestly, I'm not even surprised she's still going to that self-help group. That shit stays with you. I wanna make sure it won't ever happen again."

Peter couldn't look away from Harley's face. He looked so earnest, so sincere and still kind of helpless. They were both just teenagers, after all. "You're such a good person," Peter blurted out before he could think better of it. "And you're right – I mean, I haven't given it much thought. May was gone, too, and so were my friends. But you're right. If we'd had any clue about what was going on and this squid alien hadn't tried to abduct Doctor Strange and –"

"Absolutely!" Harley nodded enthusiastically. He leaned forward and one of his hands landed on Peter's knee. "We could have done so much more, so much sooner. And this damn speaking raccoon wouldn't randomly show up on my screen just because I'm apparently scrambling a sensor or two."

"Wait, did you say raccoon?" Peter leaned in a little closer. "I guess I missed that?"

Harley huffed, obviously amused. "Yeah, me too. Got to know him a little, though. Guess what his name is?"

A smile tugged at Peter's lips. "Tell me."

"Rocket."

Peter giggled. "No way!"

"I'm telling ya!"

"Swear to me!"

Harley laughed. "Cross my heart and hope to die!"

Peter leaned in closer until their foreheads touched, and joined in. Of course his identity being uncovered was the worst possible thing that ever happened to him, especially the way it happened, and if he could turn back time, he would do so many things differently. But it also kind of lead to this, being here with Harley and actually touching him, getting to stay with him, which made his heart flutter and his cheeks blush and maybe was one of the best things ever to happen to him.

Suddenly, static from an old radio next to the news monitors came to life. Harley practically jumped, letting go of Peter. He turned around to grab an actual radio which looked like it came out of the trash from fifty years ago. After a little fiddling, he turned up the volume. Peter frowned. He recognized two male voices saying something, possibly a number or two, but their accents were too heavy to make out proper words through the background noise.

But Harley shot up, ran over to the couch and grabbed his potato gun. "Shit," he said, the first word in a long string of curses, which really shouldn't sound so good as his accent became thick, which usually only happened when Harley was seriously distracted with something. He'd once told Peter he was already practicing for the time he got to move away from here.

"What's going on?" Peter asked, stalking after him carefully. He didn't know if he should be worried, but his sixth sense sent a shiver down his spine, even if he couldn't put his finger on what exactly was happening.

"Mae's house – a friend of Theo's," Harley explained as he slipped into his sneakers and jumped around on one foot, catching the shoes with his fingers and pulling them on. "They live two streets away."

Peter frowned. "Yeah?"

Harley rushed around Peter to the garage door. "Break-in!" He shouted, then was out of the garage, leaving a stunned Peter behind.

"Wait!" Which worked for all of three seconds before Peter grabbed his web-shooters from one of the desks and put them on while shoving the garage door open with his shoulder.


	3. Matrix Style

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I kinda sorta wrote this in one sitting on a caffeine high and I think it shows.

"Are you out of your _goddamn_ mind?!" Peter threw his hands in the air. "Look, you're even making me curse! I never do that!"

"Dammit, Parker, get your shit together," Harley sighed heavily. "I'm fine."

He was clearly not fine. He laid sprawled out on the couch, no shirt on and the biggest ice pack on his shoulder Peter could find. Legs stretched out and an energy drink in his free hand, he looked like he was on vacation safe for the obvious pain his face showed. Peter on the other hand paced in front of the couch, not really sure what he should do or say or think, except, _Harley really did that_.

"They had guns!" Peter sighed, exasperated. "They had guns and you still walked in on them with that – that thing, and you –"

"Haven't gotten shot," Harley interrupted him. He shifted a bit, trying to find a more comfortable position, and flinched, doubling over in pain and his foot kicking at the broken potato gun that Peter had grabbed off the floor in the other house.

"No, but you still fell down the stairs." Peter didn't know what to do or say anymore and stopped in front of Harley. He pushed his palms against each other, trying to keep his hands from shaking.

"I was pushed. There's a difference."

This hadn't been the first time he had been afraid because one of his friends was in danger, but it still got to him. This would never change. He couldn't let go of all the thoughts that had started running through his mind as he had followed Harley running through a back alley or two, still trying to get to the house first and keep him out of harm's way.

What if they hadn't missed Harley with their guns?

What if he'd broken his shoulder, or worse, _his neck_?

What if they'd gotten caught when the police arrived?

A strangled sob escaped his throat without Peter's permission. He slapped a hand in front of his mouth, but at the same time, his eyes started watering. Of course he was glad Harley was fine; he wouldn't know what to do if that weren't the case. But still …

"You could have _died_ ," Peter insisted even as his voice broke.

Harley just looked at him, his expression blank save for the obvious pain. "Pete," he said quietly and stretched out his healthy arm. "I'm fine. I'm okay. Hey, look at me."

"I am!" Peter wiped the tears from his eyes, only they came right back. "Your shoulder is bad. You …"

He took a step toward Harley and let him grab one of his hands. He should have seen this coming. What good was a danger sense if it didn't extend to the people around him? How could he expect to be any kind of help if he couldn't even stop burglars from hurting Harley?

Still, the touch felt good. Peter's knees felt weak and he sank to the floor in front of the couch, leaning against Harley's legs and resting his head on them, all the while never letting go of his hand. "I can't do that," Peter whispered against the rough fabric of Harley's jeans. "I can't let you put yourself in danger like that. You could be so much worse right now. I don't want that. I almost lost my friends so many times over the summer, and now you …"

"Pete, I'm okay," Harley still insisted, even though he sounded so _tired_. He freed his hand from Peter's grip and started stroking through his hair. "I'm sorry I scared you. But I couldn't just sit around when something bad happened basically next door."

"I know," Peter whispered, because he _did_ know. It was the same thing he felt. He'd been a normal kid before that spider had bitten him, but after that, he had to take some responsibility. But Harley still was a normal human, without magic or superpowers or a serum that let him at least heal faster. There was absolutely nothing special about him except his obviously lacking sense of self-preservation and that he put himself in danger for others even without a suit or flashy powers.

"If something had happened to Mae," Harley continued as he stroked Peter's hair, "I wouldn't know if I could ever face her parents. You know how everyone knows each other in this town? I think those people thought she was on vacation with her parents."

"Why did they have guns, then," Peter asked in a flat tone.

"We're in rural Tennessee," Harley reminded him. "You're probably the only person who doesn't have a weapon that can shoot and kill."

Peter looked up again. "Theodora?"

"Eh." Harley stopped touching him briefly to make a wavey motion with his hand. "I wouldn't test it."

That brought forth a hoarse, faint laugh. "Never do that again," Peter still insisted and took Harley's hand in his own again. "Please, I can't lose you."

Harley didn't meet his eyes, but he smiled a little. Peter couldn't remember if his cheeks had been this flushed for the whole evening, and it made his stomach turn to think they hadn't been. He pointedly did not look at Harley's exposed chest, because he wasn't sure if he could handle the emotional chaos of fear of loss, panic and being a horny teenager. Okay, maybe a quick peek couldn't hurt.

At least it was only Harley's shoulder that had gotten injured. It wasn't even dislocated and Peter guessed there were no broken bones, so it was more luck than anything else that had saved them tonight. And he wasn't on the scrawny side, either. Neither of them could compare to Captain America or Thor, of course, who were a whole other kind of role model. But in Peter's eyes, nobody was as beautiful as Harley, inside and out.

"What'cha looking at?" Harley interrupted his thoughts. There was even a sly smile on his lips. "Don't think you're the only shredded one. I help out on the farms around here."

Peter blinked. He'd never thought about how different their lives could be, save from the few million people New York obviously had on Rose Hill. "Really?"

Harley tried shrugging with one shoulder, but still winced in pain. "Yeah," he hissed and took a few deep breaths before he continued. "Everyone does, even Theo. We even get less homework during harvest, and you get to go out a lot. Have you seen a field just before it gets dark? I mean, _really_ seen it?"

Peter shook his head.

Harley looked happy as he continued, a faint smile on his lips and eyes looking at the ceiling, but still kind of far, far away. Like he saw something completely different in his mind. "It's stunning, even if it shows you how much work's still ahead of you. I can't help as much this year because of my summer classes, and well, now you're here. And if anyone recognized you … but when that's over, I'll take you. If – I mean, if you want to."

Peter thought about his words for a minute. Growing up in a more rural area seemed to have its perks, even though he would never have traded New York for the world. "I want to see that," Peter finally said, the corners of his lips tugging upwards not by choice but because the thought of visiting Harley under different circumstances was just … really, really nice.

Harley smiled back at him. "Promise I won't get myself killed until then."

Peter's eyebrows shot up. But Harley managed to grin lopsidedly at him and he couldn't be mad anymore. He put his hand on Peter's neck and pulled him closer again, until he resumed his original position with his head in Harley's lap. It was really hard not to sigh and snuggle closer as he felt those gentle fingers in his hair again.

*

Harley's shoulder got better fast over the next few days. It luckily was just a really bad bruise and he excused it in front of his mum with a brawl in summer class. Which almost got him grounded, but Peter kept his mouth shut at dinner. He didn't want to expose Harley's late-night visit to that house, and not only because he was part of it and the whole point of him staying here was not to do that.

"Or so help me God I'll pull an evil stepmother and you're gonna be Rapunzel until you're thirty!" Pam's words still rang in both boys' ears, accompanied by Theodora's snickering.

They quickly fell back into their routine, Peter working around the garage for a bit and Theodora keeping him company until Harley came back from summer school. This worked for a few days until Harley yelped in pain as he tried stretching after working on his MIT project for an hour or two.

Peter shot up from the hammock, the laptop on which he had watched Gravity Falls completely forgotten. "You okay?" He asked and rounded the tables to check up on Harley.

"Yeah." Harley didn't look okay, not with his face screwed up in pain like that and one hand gently touching his shoulder. "It's still sore. But I'll be fine."

Peter's heartbeat slowed down as the adrenaline rush and worry slowly faded again. "Maybe you should rest a little," he suggested.

"Guess so." Harley pulled at the collar of his shirt to peek under it and at his shoulder before letting it loose and getting up. "Hope you haven't been watching without me."

They settled on the couch and put the laptop on a table in front of them. Peter liked this. He loved Harley's company and the ease which he felt being around the other boy and just for once feeling like the world wasn't on his shoulders. Happy had been right; he wasn't the next Iron Man. Right now, he wasn't even Spider-Man. He was just a guy on summer vacation, visiting his crush. Even if his sense of responsibility still wouldn't leave him and kept him up at night.

"Hey," Harley interrupted his thoughts after half an episode without taking his eyes off the laptop. "You ever thought about what you're going to do?"

Peter wondered if Harley was secretly telepathic. He stared at the laptop, too, but missed most of what was going on. "I … don't know, really," he confessed after a minute. "I mean, I could wait until the drama dies down?"

"Yeah." As Peter turned his head, he found Harley watching him. For how long, he had no idea, and it didn't make him as uncomfortable as when other people did that. "And then?"

"And then what?" Peter frowned.

"Dunno." Harley half-shrugged, carefully not to move his injured shoulder. "People still think Spider-Man is a murderer? Some will, I guess."

Peter bit his lip. Some people always thought bad about the ones with powers and how they used them for self-gain and weren't fit to hold this kind of responsibility. He had even stumbled over some discourse about stripping people of their powers, some sort of anti-serum or whatever that was proposed. If it had been available right after he had gotten his powers, he didn't know if he'd been in line to get some. But right now, that thought scared him. He could do so much good, provided he wasn't a wanted fugitive.

"Haven't you found anything on your glasses?" Harley continued after a while.

"What do you mean?"

"You got those fancy glasses from Tony." Harley didn't have to remind him, but Peter still wasn't as easy about that fact. "I bet they record stuff, too."

"Yeah, I guess that's what Mysterio – I mean, Mr. Beck – or, uh, Quentin?"

"That asshole," Harley helped out.

"… yeah, that's what he must have done." Peter frowned and pulled up his knees, wrapping his arms around them. Once Harley had gotten the wheels in his head turning, Peter couldn't turn them off. "I mean, there was footage of our fight. It was edited, I know that, but I don't know how."

"Maybe he had help."

Peter's head shot up. "That's right!" He exclaimed and turned around to Harley. "He must have! How else could he have edited all that stuff? I mean, he _died_. And – and that's awful. I still wish he hadn't. He was … but still!"

"So?" Harley prompted. "There was nothing on your glasses?"

"I, uh." Peter didn't quite meet Harley's eyes. "I haven't looked at them yet."

"You absolute idiot!" Harley put up his uninjured arm and flicked him against the brow. "You got all that brain and don't use it? What if there's stuff on there that could help your case?"

"No, I know." Peter couldn't help the giddiness in his stomach. The answer had been in front of him the whole time! Of course he knew why he hadn't thought of this earlier. The glasses in his backpack represented all the hurt and sorrow and betrayal he had gotten through the past weeks. And he wasn't quite ready to face that just now.

"You should give it a try."

Peter wanted to decline. It was like an instinct; what if he would get hurt again? But Harley would never betray him; he'd shown that he would even rather get shot because of a girl he didn't actually know all too well before he let anything bad happen. And this hadn't been an illusion. Harley was his friend, and someone he trusted.

So Peter got the Edith glasses from his backpack up in Harley's room. "Hey, Edith," Peter told the glasses as soon as he came back into the garage, "pull up everything you got on video from Quentin Beck."

"I'm sorry, you only have restricted access to my storage," Edith told him, making Peter take the glasses off and squint at them.

"What is it?" Harley asked from the couch.

"She won't let me!" Peter was this close to just flinging off the glasses into the nearest corner and stomp on them. Repeatedly. This was the first productive idea either of them had for one and a half weeks, and if Mr. Stark could be trusted, their collective IQ should be good enough to have come up with this in the first place.

"If you want," Harley nodded to his equipment. "You can use my stuff to get to the files."

Peter took off the glasses carefully and Harley joined him at one of the two proper work stations, save for the news desk still pulling up data from the heroes actually saving the world in the background. There was a girl donning a suit quite similar to Hawkeye's running across some roofs along a taller girl, which vanished all of a sudden, along with some local Tennessee news about the two robbers Peter and Harley had left tied up in front of the house before fleeing the scene.

"You sure this will work?"

"Absolutely." Harley helped him get the cable chaos in order and both of them looked at the main monitor as soon as they hooked Edith up.

_Access denied_.

Harley raised one eyebrow. "No, this can't be."

"Maybe we put it in wrong?" Peter suggested, grabbing the cables again and checking, but the micro USB port still remained the same.

_Access denied_.

"Maybe these glasses are shitty," Harley said, pulling up the error code on the screen. Which was mostly just jumbled numbers and letters in no particular order in a dark green on black, looking like the Matrix code or something.

Peter put in a few commands Ned had taught him to get files to run.

_Access denied_.

"No _fucking_ way!" Harley yelled at the glasses.

*

They worked in shifts all throughout the afternoon and right in the middle of the night. Harley needed way more rest than Peter, what with his shoulder and all, and he should definitely study for an upcoming quiz the day after tomorrow. Which he didn't seem to take seriously, at all.

"I can't," Peter groaned after another half hour of repeatedly banging his head against the table because nothing else seemed to work. He shot up from the chair, pacing the garage again.

"You tried another language?" Harley asked from his place on the couch, not even looking up from his phone anymore.

"Every language I could think of," Peter said. "I even googled because I don't recognize the code!"

Harley tapped his phone repeatedly. "Mhm," he said. "Rebooted Edith?"

" _And_ your computer," Peter sighed. "Those are simple, and they didn't work. I even cross-referenced the code to your blueprints; you emulated Mr. Stark's code on them to get the Arc reactor working, right? I thought maybe it was similar, but the encoding is different from anything I've ever seen."

Finally, Harley's eyes wandered up until there was a ping from his phone and he turned his attention back there.

"You working, too?" Peter had to ask.

"Oh, no." Harley turned the phone around so Peter could see what he was doing.

For a second, he wasn't quite sure what the mess of colors were supposed to show, until he focused properly. Then, Peter's eyebrows shot up. "A farm game?"

"Hey, don't sound so offended."

"I'm not!"

"You should take a break," Harley suggested and grabbed Peter's wrist as he tried to start pacing again.

"This Matrix shit is killing me," Peter groaned, but still let himself being pulled down next to Harley. He snuggled up next to the other boy automatically, leaning against him and feeling much calmer all of a sudden. How was it that Harley had this kind of effect on him?

*

"Hey, maybe we should watch it."

Harley and Peter looked at each other for a few seconds before the latter shrugged. "Nothing else made the code work, so we might as well try," he concluded, flopping down on the couch next to Harley.

This was the third night in a row and they still hadn't come up with a good enough idea on how to extract the restricted files. Despite everything, Harley's quiz had gone well and neither of them knew how. So they pulled up The Matrix on the laptop and snuggled up on the couch, Harley throwing a blanket over them. It wasn't cold, not even a little, but Peter got comfortable way easier like this. He didn't know if they were similar that way, but Harley seemed to relax more, too.

That's when they began to see the similarities. The green code on the black background was just like Edith's, and even the symbols looked kind of alike. But that was coincidence, Peter was sure of it. He was tired and exhausted and not in his right mind. He yawned, resting his head on Harley's shoulder.

"Lie down," Harley suggested after half the movie, "it's my turn now."

Peter nodded, letting himself fall on the couch fully as Harley stood up. He curled up on the warm spot Harley left behind and wanted nothing more than to imagine it was his lap and Peter could sleep there and be happy like this.

*

After drifting off for maybe half an hour and only occasionally listening to the fight scenes on the laptop and Harley's curses, a yelp tore Peter from his half-sleep. He shot up, rubbed his eyes and looked around. "What is it?"

"I'm onto something!" Harley yelled. "You awake, Pete?"

"Yeah," Peter almost got caught in the blanket and hopped around on one foot trying to get loose. He grabbed a table and shook it free.

"Come here!"

Peter jumped over the table and almost crashed into the one Harley was working on. The other boy grabbed him by the arm. "What is it?" Peter asked, leaning into Harley's space to take a look at the screen.

"It _is_ like The Matrix!" Harley shook his arm and pointed at the symbols on the screen with the other. "Look, I started translating it and – and it did something, but –"

"That's gonna take _weeks_!" Peter leaned over even more, squinting closer at the screen. "Look, Mr. Stark made it so big and …"

"And he gave it to you," Harley finished, looking up at Peter with such … confidence. He wasn't sure he deserved it. "And I'm not sure if Tony really did that. Look at it."

"It's so … different." Peter struggled not to sit down right on the floor and put his face in his hands. That was so overwhelming – they found out what was happening with the code. Well, Harley did. But the result _that_ yielded was far from anything he recognized.

"Hey, stop shaking." Only then Peter realized that he did exactly that. He grabbed Harley's now-fine shoulders. "You're fine. You can do that. I mean, we – obviously."

Peter shook his head to get the more distressing thoughts out of his system. "Yeah, right." He switched to nodding. "No, yeah, you're right – you're gonna help, right?"

"Pete." Harley put a hand over his. "Who's the genius who tried translating it?"

*

"Didn't you say I should cut back on the caffeine?" Peter asked as he caught the energy drink Harley threw at him from across the room. Not once did he take his eyes off the code. It translated to Python and they were still figuring out writing a translation program a whole day after discovering it.

"Yeah, well." Harley flung himself on the second chair, grabbed a pencil from behind his ear and tapped the lid of his own can. "Desperate measures and what-not."

"Mhm." Peter scribbled down another letter, re-read the code and scratched it out again. "Got that book?" He groped for the Japanese-English dictionary lying on Harley's side of the table.

*

"That's it." Harley sighed and rubbed at the rings under his eyes before yawning. "I think that was the last one."

Peter stared at the screen showing their translations, not quite sure what exactly they were getting at. But he hoped it was going to work. It _had to_. He didn't know what to do if it failed. "Finally," he breathed and entered the last number. His finger hovered over the Enter button.

"Come on, do us the honors," Harley prompted. Peter could tell he was just as giddy. He grabbed Harley's hand and pressed the button with the other.

The Matrix code in front of their eyes translated line for line, so fast even his own eyes couldn't keep up with it. They were completely still, not even daring to breathe too loudly in fear of disturbing the code. Harley intertwined their fingers even though his own hand was shaking badly. After a minute or two, they exchanged glances, then immediately looked back to the screen. After the last line was decoded live, the whole thing went black.

Peter blinked at his own reflection in the screen. He looked as dumbfounded as Harley before their reflections vanished, making way for a white screen with two dark green words.

_Access granted_.

"Yes!" Peter's face broke into a smile. "It worked!"

Harley jumped up from his chair in excitement. "We did it! Look at it!"

"We did it!" Peter repeated, letting go of Harley's hand to throw his arms around the other boy's shoulders, jumping up and down.

He felt Harley pull him into a tight hug, jumping too, and somehow they kicked over the chair he'd been sitting on. "Finally!"

"I could kiss you!" Peter exclaimed as joy washed over him in waves.

Harley laughed into his ear. "Please do!"

That made him stop for a second and pull back a little so he could look at Harley's face. He was just as red as Peter, still grinning from ear to ear. For a few seconds, they stared at each other. Peter didn't know what to do. Well, obviously he wanted to kiss Harley, and obviously the answer had been yes, but … his stomach did that thing where he wasn't sure if he would throw up any second now. But Peter didn't back down. He didn't quite kiss Harley, either, but still leaned forward to give him a peck on the cheek.

Harley chuckled quietly. He didn't let go of Peter once, just pulled him closer and leaned forward so their foreheads touched. "I … thought you meant like this," he breathed and leaned forward to kiss Peter on the lips.

It took Peter a second to realize what was happening, but soon enough he was kissing Harley back. His lips were warm and a bit rough and kind of perfect. And Peter didn't want to do anything else for a really, really long while.

"I did," Peter answered as they broke apart for a second, then leaned forward to kiss Harley again. And again and again.


	4. Truth Through A Lense

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took me longer than I'd like to admit to find a fitting pun for the chapter title.

All those kisses left Peter feeling kind of breathless in the best way possible. This was actually happening right now, and it was mind-blowing. Peter didn't know how long they stood like this, holding each other and kissing, but he didn't care. He didn't want to do anything else for the rest of the evening.

"Gross!"

Peter shrieked a little and Harley jumped easily a foot in the air. "What the fuck?" He snarled, turning to Theodora who was standing in the door and made a face.

"I never wanna see that again!" She complained and dramatically shivered. "I'm scarred for life."

Harley took an empty energy drink and threw it at his sister. "Get out!"

Theodora ducked with the ease of someone who had years of practice. "Mum says dinner is ready! I'll tell her you won't come because you're busy … doing _that_." She made a vague motion with her hand in their general direction.

After she slammed the door shut again, Peter looked at Harley. Did they … continue now? Or do something else? Or, heavens forbid, _talk_ about it? He didn't know the rules to this kind of thing. Or even if there were rules. Harley was blushing and rubbed his neck with a hand and Peter looked down to his own hands fiddling with the hem of his t-shirt.

"So," Harley said and cleared his throat. Nothing followed.

"Yeah, uh." Peter swallowed dryly. "Let's, uh … see what Edith got?" He didn't look at Harley, only waited for the hum he knew meant agreement.

Peter turned back to the computer and scrolled through Edith's visual recording database. The files stopped at one point, and Peter recognized himself on a thumbnail, smiling at the camera – or rather the someone who had the glasses on at this point.

"Why are you on there?" Harley asked, pointing.

Neither of them was patient enough to get the chairs, so they stood in front of the table as Peter moved to click on the image. He bumped into Harley, but wasn't sure if he was to acknowledge this. And Harley didn't make a move to stand closer to him, either. The giddiness inside Peter wasn't just because of their kiss now. What if they found something really weird on these files? What were they even looking for?

Peter swallowed hard as the video started and he recognized himself giving Quentin Beck the glasses in that bar. And then most of that faded, turned out to be an illusion, and he got another glimpse at Beck's true self. Peter's stomach turned in the worst way possible. The last thing he heard was the proposal for a toast, Mr. Stark's name and all those people booing.

"What the fuck was that?" Harley whispered next to him. He took Peter's hand and squeezed it tightly.

All Peter could do was shake his head. "I don't know."

"Didn't he … monologue?" Harley prompted, sounding more than a little confused.

"Uh, what?"

"Yeah, talk about his motivations and stuff right before he, you know," he shrugged. "Tried to kill you?"

Peter shook his head and clicked on the next file. Edith now seemed to be hooked up to their systems, just as Beck had asked. The glasses showed Mysterio's helmet, and there were two people out of sight talking. None of the voices belonged to Beck, but Peter couldn't see them clearly, even as he leaned forward to get a better look. Only the code they cracked running through the helmet, and something in the background out of focus that looked like a lot of smoke and red and green, which kind of reminded him of the fire elemental he thought had been real.

_"… Mr. Stark was thinking," started a female voice. "Have you looked at the footage?"_

_"Yeah, I know, Janice," a male voice answered, sounding exhausted. "I still can't believe it. He was a bad boss, but this is downright crazy. He should've been locked up a long time ago."_

_The female voice, Janice, laughed, but it didn't sound sincere. "Along with the other Avengers. I get that they saved the planet, I really do. But they're all unhinged. The Hulk, I can't believe he's big on YouTube, and this crazy spy bitch and that drunk … what, god? It's downright terrifying what they can do, and they're completely unchecked!"_

_"And Tony Stark, obviously," returned the male voice. Hands came in focus, grabbing the helmet. "Giving his life for all of mankind? For the whole universe? No wonder people believe the Quentin-Story if something like this happened."_

_"True."_

_"Call the boss?" The male prompted. "The integration's done."_

Peter frowned. "You're ignorant," he told the people in the video, even though he knew it was pointless. "What, you think he _wanted_ to die? He saved you!" His hand that wasn't holding Harley's shot up and pointed at the video, now back to its original thumbnail and a play button.

"Not everyone's gonna see it that way," Harley said and yeah, he knew that. He wasn't that stupid. It still hurt to listen to stuff like this when they hadn't even been there, hadn't stared two versions of Thanos in the face and fought his army.

Peter's face scrunched up when he saw the next thumbnail and he refused to click on it, so Harley did. He wasn't sure what they were going to see next, but he doubted it was good.

It was Beck again, completely unhinged. The illusion was so real and confined to a single room, even though it was large, that Peter flinched for a second as his spider sense kicked in. It screamed _Danger_ right into his ears and he took a step back. Beck was yelling about killing him and yeah, it hurt. A lot. No matter how many times Peter had heard him talk about this, he had been a person he could trust, even if it was short-lived.

"Damn," mumbled Harley and shook his head. "That's really messed up."

The next video played, this time without illusions, just Beck and his scientist and another woman, the latter fiddling with the Edith glasses.

_They showed a keyboard and the woman frowning, typing something up. "You want it that way, William?" She asked._

_The scientist who had been out of focus next to Beck stepped up to her, explaining the way he wanted the restricted access to be encoded. "Even Tony Stark would need a while to crack it now," he said and sounded more than a little proud. "That's what he gets for firing us from_ Stark Industries _. Thanks, Victoria."_

_"Yeah, try getting a job after this," Victoria said and shook her head. "I was on welfare for two months before someone else even considered a job interview. It ruined me."_

_"Me too." William nodded. "You know I had a potential employer calling S.I.?"_

_"What did they say?"_

_"Well, I wasn't given the job because I was incompetent in Stark's eyes." William shook his head. "Yeah, just because he made the Arc reactor work doesn't mean I didn't have serious success on the way along. I'm glad he's dead; nobody will ever have that kind of power over my life."_

_"Not to mention," Beck added, "that he took our inventions. Your Arc reactor design? He claimed it for himself. And my illusion tech? You know the coverage of the MIT funding project. Not a single word it was developed by me. Not a name drop, not even of my assistants after he fired me. It was all him, him, him."_

Peter let go of Harley's hand and leaned over the keyboard to stop the video. He couldn't watch this. It made his stomach turn and twist and he felt like throwing up. "I can't believe he'd do that," Peter whispered but in the sudden silence of the room, his doubts and accusations were loud and clear.

"No, he's … not like that." Harley's voice was dulled by the hands he put over his face.

How and when the next video started playing, Peter couldn't say. Maybe it was some automated program Edith was running, like a sort of prediction from Peter's actions. Or he hit the 'play all' button last time. A bunch of people filled the screen; a few at a time, mostly standing together talking about destroying London and Prague, one even lamenting they didn't get enough coverage because the people on the Ferris wheel hadn't died. Peter visibly shivered in fear at the thought of Ned and Betty getting hurt.

Mostly it had to do with Mr. Stark, though. And the worst part was, Peter got it. He knew what it was like to grow up poor, to get a job opportunity and then it got messed up. None of this compared to Mr. Stark taking his suit away, because Peter didn't have to make money and support a family and he always got the impression Mr. Stark had wanted the best for him.

But those people, when they lost their jobs, they had families to support. Wives, husbands, children, and one of them even said he had been close to being homeless because nobody would hire him after Mr. Stark accused him of stealing. "I didn't even make minimum wage," complained the guy who didn't get compensation after the Battle of New York destroyed his apartment.

*

After that, Peter wasn't hungry anymore. When Pam brought the dinner to the garage because they hadn't shown up for an hour after she had sent Theodora, she found Harley and him on the couch, not really talking or doing anything except sitting side by side, their shoulders barely touching. Not even the laptop played a movie or a show, they just sat there in silence.

"What's wrong, boys?" Pam asked as she approached them, frowning.

Peter and Harley shared a look. Was it wise to tell Pam what they had discovered? And if so, how much? Peter desperately wanted to trust someone with this; someone who had more experience with life, who maybe could make all they found and heard and seen a little less bleak. Who had some hope for them. Peter raised his eyebrows in question, but Harley shook his head almost unnoticeable.

"Experiment gone wrong," he told his mum without taking his eyes off Peter, tilting his head slightly forward.

"Yeah," Peter agreed. He didn't look Pam in the eyes, but rather studied the floor in front of her feet.

"Fine, you won't tell me." Peter's head shot up and he was met with a look that said she knew exactly that they were lying. She put a hand on either boy's knee. "I don't care what you do in here. Well, I do if it involves putting yourself in danger or accidentally almost blowing up the whole block."

"Look, I'm sorry," Harley sighed in a tone that led Peter to believe this wasn't the first time this was brought up. "It was an accident."

"I know, honey." The resemblance between those two was stunning. Peter wondered how he had never noticed before, but he could clearly see the blood relationship when Pam raised her eyebrows at them. "My point is, you're both old enough to know what you're doing. Mostly. Just … if you need help, tell me, okay? I'm here for you."

Peter bit his lip. For one to not just spill everything they had seen, and because he couldn't quite comprehend believing in people again. He did with aunt May and Happy and Harley, of course. He knew Ned and MJ and the rest of his family, related or not, would never harm him in any way. But he still didn't know if that included Pam or if she would even get what was going on.

"Thanks, mum," Harley mumbled next to him, but didn't sound like he wanted to take a shot at an explanation, either.

"Come eat dinner," Pam prompted. "Upset or not, you both must be starving."

And yeah, okay, if the rumbling of Peter's stomach was anything to go by, he really needed some food.

*

Even after some food and a watermelon so good Peter had to wash his face _twice_ afterwards, they really didn't know what to do. Lounging around Harley's room was a little better because they didn't have to look at the Edith glasses and what they held anymore, but Peter still felt confined. He paced the room and almost walked up the walls and right over Harley's posters a few times. It wasn't until Harley stood up and rummaged around in his mess of a closet that Peter stopped to watch him.

He caught the shirt Harley threw at him with ease, but still frowned when he looked at it. "Put it on, none of yours have a hood," Harley said as if he expected Peter to just … change in front of him. Not that Peter worried too much about that, they did that on a regular basis when changing for bed. But he still stood there motionless, not really sure what Harley was getting at. "There won't be anyone outside, but I guess better safe than sorry? I'm going for a walk."

That made Peter change in record time. "Where to?" He asked as he pulled over Harley's shirt. It was a little too big and he couldn't even see properly when he put up the hood, but it smelled like the other boy and for that alone Peter didn't want to let go of it, ever.

"Just … outside." Harley shrugged and led the way.

'Just outside' apparently meant the dirt roads between the fields right outside the city. Peter could still smell the warm earth and the flowers growing on the wayside, along with the crispier night air. It wasn't cold enough to warrant a jacket, so the t-shirt with the hood was a good choice. Peter stood still for a few seconds as he noticed all the stars visible from their place in the middle of nowhere. Growing up in New York, Peter had visited the planetarium during a school trip, but the projections of their galaxy and all the stars and planets out there was just that. Not real.

Seeing all this live, even if he was still too far away to touch any of it, even if he knew what kind of planets were out there and all the people that came with them, even if he had fought against people with alien weapons and alongside them, he could still barely comprehend what he was seeing. He marveled at all the bright dots in front of a black sky, and knowing what they were made of and how many of them were probably dead at this point didn't take anything away from the wonder.

"Thanks for taking me," Peter said quietly, knowing that Harley had stopped right next to him.

He felt Harley take his hand and intertwine their fingers. "I knew you'd like it," Harley responded just as quietly. He offered Peter one of his bluetooth earbuds and they continued to walk on, rock music playing just loud enough to remind both of them who brought them here.

*

"I've had it with you!"

Theodora stormed into the garage the following evening. Peter wasn't sure if it was her own flannel she was wearing of if going through Harley's wardrobe was a thing. Nevertheless, the long shirt almost whipped around like a cape when she came to a halt in front of them on the couch. They hadn't done anything, literally, the whole day. Harley hadn't even left for summer school.

"What the fuck do you want?" Harley snarled at her.

"You're the worst!" Theodora's leaned forward and poked her brother in the chest, who slapped her hand away. "You make me miserable just by looking at you!"

Peter was, quite frankly, taken aback. He didn't have any siblings to compare Theodora and Harley's relationship to, so he wasn't sure if that was normal. "What's going on?" He asked, not really sure if he wanted to become the center of Theodora's anger but not able to keep quiet, either.

"I dunno, you that bad of a kisser?" She raised her eyebrows at him. "You're making me depressive with your sulking and your bad mood." She huffed, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

"Um." Peter really didn't know what to say to that.

"Then don't come in here," Harley shot back, stretching and kicking at her without getting up.

Theodora kicked back, making Harley yelp as she hit his shin. "I wouldn't if I didn't have to see your ugly face at dinner."

"What's going on?" Peter decided to ask. Even if he still wasn't sure he wanted any attention – or an answer, for that matter.

"You're getting on my nerves and if you don't tell me what the hell your problem is _right now_ , I'm going to tell mum you're being weird and doing stuff in here," she said with such conviction that Peter had no trouble imagining what kind of things she would make up that they definitely _didn't_ do in here.

He traded a look with Harley and then looked to the computer where Edith still sat innocently. Apparently, though, Theodora wasn't an idiot and followed his look, turning around and stalking over to the computer.

"Hey!" Harley practically jumped up and tackled his sister from the side.

"Asshole!" She yelled and Peter could hear her slap against bare skin, probably the arms which Harley had put around her middle to lift her off the ground.

Theodora fought back and kicked Harley, who let go of her and stumbled against the table with Edith on it. His hand came down on the keyboard, hard, and the monitors sprang back to life. "What the fu–"

He was interrupted by a video just starting to play; apparently, whatever he did caused Edith to rewind the tapes and start from the beginning. Theodora stared at the monitor, her eyes wide and mouth open and heard Beck talk about being Mysterio, until the next video started. Harley was frozen right next to her, holding up his hands as if he wanted to do something. But he never did, he stood motionless. Just like Peter was frozen on the couch, still on the verge of getting up to break up the sibling fight.

"Wait," Theodora said after a minute and looked at Harley. "That's what's going on? You found vids of people talking bad about your pen pal?"

Peter frowned, finally getting around to stand up fully. "What?"

"That." Theodora pointed at the screen. "I thought you had a fight and weren't talking, but I saw you taking a walk like a goddamn _couple_. Disgusting, by the way, you're above this, Pete."

Peter blinked, utterly confused, and his frown deepened. "But I – we –"

"What's wrong with you?" Harley talked over him and punched his sister in the arm.

"Ouch!" Theodora rubbed at the spot and took a step back. "Anyways, I thought no, that couldn't be it. So … this had to be it. I mean, I never knew your Tony, but that sounds pretty mean."

And really, she wasn't far off. It _was_ mean, and disturbing and threw off Peter's inner balance he didn't know he still had some left and … wow, okay. Theodora really was way more intelligent than she let on. And maybe they should have thought of locking the computer at one point or another. He stepped up next to Harley to face the computer and pause the videos. "I don't think it's that simple," he said while trying to keep calm and not show how upset it made him to hear all the insults and injustice again.

"What, then? Enlighten me." Theodora put both hands on her hips. "All I hear right now, is you're in a bad mood because you believe a bunch of villains with beers more than a dude you think is a good person and have known for years."

Which shouldn't make Peter so defensive. But really, he crossed his arms in front of his chest and took a step backwards. Which was kind of hiding behind Harley, but honestly – Theodora could be a force of nature and her bad mood really got to him. He was a bit sensitive like that.

Harley on the other hand shook his head. "Well, and what do _you_ propose we do?" He asked, his voice basically dripping with sarcasm.

"Um, kick their asses?" How Theodora made it sound like the most obvious thing in the world, Peter didn't know. And also how they hadn't thought of that.

"And why would we do that?" Harley asked instead.

"Because that guy who was an ass to your Pete wasn't working alone and technically, they're all responsible?" Theodora pointed at the screen.

"I think she's onto something," Peter had to admit after mulling that thought over for a minute.

"Yeah?" Harley turned around to him, one eyebrow raised. But that look quickly changed and he furrowed his brow, pulling his lower lip between his teeth as he did so often when he thought something over.

"Just – whatever you do, get your shit together," Theodora demanded.

*

"Pete!"

Peter almost jumped as he felt hands on his shoulders and Harley's voice rip him from sleep. "Wha –" He scrambled to sit upright, eyes wide and Harley's face right in front of his. "What's wrong?"

"Never tell Theo I said that out loud, but I think she's right!"

Peter blinked. They had been sleeping! Or, well, at least he thought they had been. Apparently, he was wrong. "About?"

"Well, about needing to do something about those guys, obviously."

*

Peter followed Harley to the garage still in pajama pants and an over-sized shirt that he may or may not have claimed as his own. They grabbed a pot of coffee on their way through the kitchen.

"So, where do we start?" Peter asked as soon as they pulled up the chairs in front of the computer again.

"I thought about all the people on there," Harley said and pulled up the first video file. "We got their names and faces."

"Oh, right!" Peter clapped his hands and reached out to the coffee, filling a mug for each of them. "They gotta be identifiable. Edith got facial recognition tech."

Harley glanced at him, an eyebrow raised and a small smile on his lips as he took the coffee. "I like how you think."

Peter couldn't keep himself from chuckling. And maybe turning red a little with the compliment. "Thanks."

"Okay." Harley looked around the first few frames of the video over and over again. "Who do we start with?"

*

A few hours later, they had the wall over the couch completely filled with a map, sticky notes with current locations and names on them, and the list got longer by the minute. Peter stood up to round Harley, pinning a face next to 'William' and his current location.

"How many still?"

"Can't make out more than two others," Harley admitted while scribbling something on another sticky note and handing it to Peter. "What do you think?"

"It's nearly perfect," Peter admitted, smiling down at his friend. "I wouldn't know what to do without you. Or Theo."

Harley laughed and put an arm around Peter's middle. "Then you're going to be stunned by my next idea. We gotta do something about Edith."

Peter returned the smile as he put his arms around Harley's shoulders. The smile widened as he heard out Harley's idea, not really thinking it over too much. It sounded perfect as it was. And this time Peter didn't ask before leaning down to kiss the guy. Because he was serious; if Harley hadn't been a friend and … whatever else this was between them, Peter was sure he would have given up by now.

*

As soon as the sun was up, so was Pam. They crashed into the kitchen with the third empty coffee pot and Harley slid across the room and grabbed the chair next to his mum. "Hey!"

Peter crashed into him but held the pot high to shield it from potential damage. "You said you'd help us?"

Pam had her hair in a messy bun, still in her sleep clothes and looked close to a heart attack. She composed herself quickly, though. "Yeah, what is it?"

Harley almost toppled over the chair in his excitement and jumped up and down. "We need bus tickets!"


	5. Stranger Paths

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> During my research, I stumbled upon a fairly new Marvel comic titled Strange Academy. Guess who's a fan now? And guess whose plot changed a little and got a proper ending that just needs to be written?
> 
> Also I did some research on the districts of New Orleans, and let me tell you, I nearly cried. It broke my heart to see the not so rich districts still so destroyed even more than a decade after hurricane Katrina, and the details of the plan for this chapter were born.

"Why New Orleans?" Harley asked, glued to his phone as he scrolled down a news website.

Peter only looked at him briefly, having taken the windows seat in the Greyhound from Nashville to New Orleans. At least the view wasn't too bad and they had free wi-fi on board, which was a standard Peter didn't expect. They had been confined in two seats and traveling for the better part of 18 hours now, and he couldn't wait to get off.

"I mean, look at this." Harley showed him yet another article, something about strange happenings in the Bourbon Street alongside a picture of a girl with pink skin. "I swear if we run into these people, I'm turning around _right then and there_."

"It's New Orleans," Peter shrugged while leaning over to see the picture better. "I mean, it even looks weird without all the … _weird_ , you know?"

They didn't look much better, more like runaways than anything else with their gray hoodies and baseball caps and too big backpacks full of food and extra clothes and the last bit of change they had. Pam had gotten them bus tickets and was ready to cover for Harley at summer school after they had to explain everything to her, but Harley's family was about as rich as Peter's. So they were mostly on their own.

Harley put the phone down to look outside the window. The bus station didn't look any different than the ones in New York when they pulled up, but the streets they had been through were full of weird people, even by Peter's standards. It was every magic cliche mixed together; a girl with dreadlocks wore a long skirt with a chain of small skulls around it, an older guy with blue hair looked he wasn't even walking but floating through the streets and a typical grandmother made her way through the streets while glowing a faint green. None of the tourists and more normal looking people seemed to notice them, just walking by some strange storefronts in-between small grocery shops and apartment units.

Peter and Harley grabbed their hastily packed backpacks and exited the bus as soon as it came to a halt, squeezing through the mass of people and trying to find a quiet place. "Where are we going again?" Peter asked, pulling out his own phone to look for the address they had found.

"Uh, lower 9th district," Harley answered after a minute of scrolling through his own phone. "I can't find a bus that goes there, though."

"Then we'll just have to walk, I guess."

*

"You're banned from making any decision ever again," Harley complained after an hour of doing exactly what Peter had suggested; walking through New Orleans and getting lost on a regular basis, though the latter obviously hadn't been part of the plan. But even Google Maps wasn't helpful, what with all the weird alleys Peter swore hadn't been there a minute before but looked like a good shortcut.

"I'm sorry," Peter repeated for the fifth or sixth time by now. "I didn't know it would be this confusing." He looked around a little helplessly; navigating the city hadn't sounded so hard. He was from New York, after all, he should be able to keep track of the streets in a city of much smaller scale.

"Need help?" A young woman seemed to appear right next to them, wearing huge glasses and a beanie and a long skirt. "You looked a little lost there, boys."

Peter froze. Then looked around, but the people on the street didn't seem to pay them much attention. "How do you …?" He started, not quite sure what his question actually was.

"Who are you?" Harley demanded in a much more confident voice. He grabbed Peter's arm, seemingly ready to run, but Peter couldn't sense any danger. Which was weird, because his feelings had been going haywire for the past hour or so, but this woman was obviously no threat at all.

"Call me Zelma," the woman said and put an arm around Harley. "Just act like we're old friends. They won't come for you then."

Peter's stomach turned and he looked around again. All his senses were overloaded; the smells were downright weird, along with the buildings looking so run down he wasn't even sure how old they were, but housing new storefronts. And the masses of regular people and tourists were almost indistinguishable from all the weird that was obviously going on. But as soon as he tried to focus on the people in the corner of his eye, they seemed to vanish.

"That's it," Harley mumbled while shaking his head. "We're getting out of here."

"No, wait!" Peter held onto Harley with both hands, grabbing his shirt and pulling him closer. He looked at Zelma. "Who's coming? Where?"

Zelma shook her head. "That's no place for you, kids."

"What, New Orleans?" Harley frowned at her. "I've seen plenty of kids around."

"They're not like you. Get out of Bourbon Street and you'll be fine."

"That's an ominous threat if I ever heard one." And yeah, Harley was right about this. Zelma maybe didn't look like she was a threat, but Peter had gotten accustomed to being threatened over the past years after getting his power. And it wasn't much fun.

"But we need to get to the lower 9th district," Peter said and ignored the shushing Harley was trying to do. Because as much as this woman seemed to threaten them, he got the feeling she also wanted to help. "Can you give us directions, Miss Zelma?" They were lost, obviously, in a city that may not be half as big as New York, but every bit as strange, if not worse. And he doubted Harley had much more of a plan than 'getting out', not that Peter was any better.

"Of course." Zelma smiled and it looked kind of sincere. At least Peter didn't get a weird tingle about it. Right up until she turned around and said, "Follow me."

"What are you?" Harley asked, not letting go of Peter for one second but still following as Zelma lead them down the street.

"I'm a Who, just like you two," Zelma answered, barely audible above the chattering of the people around them. "A human, of sorts."

Peter and Harley exchanged a look. Obviously, they both weren't sure if that was meant as it came across, but Harley shook his head in a way that implored Peter not to follow up on that. They stopped in front of a blue door, looking innocent and boring and just like everything else on this street.

"Step through and you'll be safe," Zelma said and opened it.

Harley eyed the door with the suspicion of a guy who had been pushed down the stairs and claimed he fell. Which was to say, much more cautiously than he had approached the burglars. "How do we know we can trust you?"

"Fair point, I guess." Zelma sighed. "Fine, I'll go first. I don't want you to get lost in there, after all."

And with that, she stepped through the door. Peter looked at Harley for a brief second, who shrugged and didn't let go of him as they both followed Zelma much more cautiously. The room behind that door wasn't quite a room. It was all black with lamps lighting something that probably was a path, but Peter couldn't see anything except empty space. It was like being trapped in that one illusion again, the one where Mysterio had made Harley disappear and then put Peter right in front of a train.

It was just a few steps to the next door, but it felt like eternity. Not that Peter had any experience with that, but this is how he imagined it. He saw Zelma in front of them and the blue lamps and Harley, of course, but his sense of danger was either working overtime or non-existent at all. One second, Peter had the feeling that everything he couldn't see or touch or smell was out there to hurt him, but it vanished as soon as he took another step and he felt a weird warmth encompassing him, the way he felt when lying next to Harley and just _knowing_ there wasn't anything out there that could hurt them right in that moment.

As they stepped through the next door, a similar shade of blue as the first one, Peter fell to the ground. His legs just wouldn't take him any further. There was dirt and grass which he could see, touch and smell beneath him and he dug his hands right in. Breathing heavily, it took him a few seconds to look up again.

"Hey there." Harley knelt down right next to him, putting an arm around his shoulders but looking up at Zelma. "What did you do to him?!"

"Nothing," he heard Zelma's voice. She sounded a little guilty, though. "Sorry, that's the way it is around here, boys. I never intended to hurt you, but if you come back to Bourbon Street, there's something waiting that will."

"Is that another threat?" Harley asked. "I'm getting tired of this."

"No, a warning. I'm not your enemy." She knelt down and put a hand on Peter's shoulder. Whatever she did, the nausea went away. "If you need help in this city, the Strange Academy is here to protect you. You're just kids, after all."

"The what now?" Harley tilted his head in confusion.

Zelma smiled at them. "Don't worry about it, we'll extend an invitation soon enough. Just … stay as safe as possible."

Peter felt Zelma's presence vanish as she walked back through the blue door and his feelings returned to normal. He couldn't keep the shiver down, though, but Harley stroking his back was comforting. Peter leaned against him. "I'm never going back here again," he mumbled under his breath. "Whose idea was that, now?"

Harley helped him up and they looked around. This district was the exact opposite of the lively Bourbon Street. A lot of buildings around here looked like they were empty, half destroyed even, and Peter wondered how their phones still had signal out here. This didn't look like New Orleans, not in the slightest.

"You sure we're in the right place?" Peter asked.

"Pretty much. At least Google says so." Harley frowned at his phone. A drop fell onto the screen and as they looked up, they noticed storm clouds forming over their head. "You think there's a motel around here?"

*

There wasn't. The whole district didn't just look run-down, it _was_. Peter and Harley had found an apartment building, only two stories high, but nobody seemed to live in it. So they holed up in one of the apartments on the ground floor, which wasn't much more than a bunch of empty rooms. It had gotten weirdly cold with the rain pouring outside and leaking through the roof, a constant dripping of big raindrops on the slightly corrugated floorboards.

Harley grabbed a few energy bars from his backpack and Peter supplied apple juice, which was a pretty pathetic dinner. But they hadn't thought of bringing more, sure they would be able to get something in New Orleans. Right before the rain had driven them into the empty apartment, they had tried looking for a store to get food, but there was nothing. Or they just hadn't found the only one in the whole district, which seemed just as weird.

"I don't want to stay here longer than necessary," Harley said in-between bites of his energy bar. "Wanna go through with the plan tonight?"

Peter nodded. "Right." He tried to ignore the cold wind coming from the broken window but shivered nonetheless, pulling his hoodie closer around him. "You think this is enough?"

Harley looked him up and down. Obviously Peter couldn't go out in his spider-suit. People would recognize him, even if he wasn't in New York, so the gray hoodie was their only option. Harley pulled a black tube scarf out of his backpack and handed it to Peter.

"What about you?"

"Don't worry," Harley smiled a little. "Nobody recognizes me."

His words shouldn't have any right to sound so sad. "They should," Peter said. "You're amazing."

That made Harley laugh. "Yeah, well, I'm better than you at keeping that on the down-low."

Peter huffed. "Yeah, right." He pulled a map of New Orleans out of his own backpack and spread it out on the floor while Harley shone his flashlight over it. It only showed the lower 9th district and they had printed it as they had been collecting data about Mysterio's closest … henchmen? Whatever they were, William, who seemed to be the main scientist, seemed to have made New Orleans his new home.

"We're about … here," Harley pointed at the map. "Looks right?"

Peter shrugged. "I guess. And next time, I propose we take a map of the whole city with us."

For now, though, they focused on William, the first of four people they could identify to have played a bigger role in the whole plan. "If that's any standard to go by," Harley waved a hand around to encompass the whole run-down apartment they were in, "William's place shouldn't be in much better shape. If we find any security measures, let me disable them before going in."

Peter nodded. "The rest is easy. If he's there, get a confession; if he's not, look for evidence and get out again."

"You're going to make a great burglar."

"Hey!" Peter's head shot up. "I'm not a burglar!"

"Technically, this is breaking and entering."

Peter huffed and put his arms around his middle. "What else am I supposed to do?"

"Be careful when walking around the apartment," Harley insisted. "I'll keep watch and tell you if something goes wrong. Here." He handed Peter one of the bluetooth earbuds. They didn't have access to some of the fancier stuff Mr. Stark usually had, like earpieces, so an ongoing call and these earbuds had to do.

"Ready?" Peter asked as they were finished eating and stowed away their backpacks to get them later.

"No?" Harley shook his head. "But it's fun, isn't it?"

Peter chuckled a little. "Yeah, like we're spies. Miss Romanov could teach us so much."

Harley grinned back. He put his hands on Peter's shoulders and leaned in for a kiss. "For good luck."

*

The three story apartment building in which William lived didn't look much better from the outside, just as expected. The facade was dark with dirt and grime and weeds grew all around it, wet from the rain. Just like Harley and Peter were as they rounded the last corner, pressed against the house front of another run-down building that looked like it could topple over any second now. They hid in the shadows as best as they could and the rain provided some extra cover. The buildings stood far apart, so Peter was sure if anyone looked out the window and he would swing from roof to roof, he would be seen immediately. And if that someone was William, well, they needed a new plan.

So they stuck to their cover, rounding the apartment building the scientist now lived in to get to the back. "Not much security, is there," Harley mumbled as they stopped in front of the back entrance and pushed against the dark wooden door. It creaked loudly and swung open.

Peter and Harley shared a look. This wasn't nearly as how they imagined this going. "This is way too easy," he mumbled. They got out their phones and started the call as Peter entered first. The lobby, if one could call it that, wasn't more than a dark entrance with a steep stairway leading up and a door to their right. A piece of paper hung from it, once white, with the word 'basement' scribbled onto it in messy handwriting.

"This is how horror movies start," Harley mumbled. "If you see a red balloon, run."

Peter peeked into the basement door, trying to open it as quietly as possible. Their barely available information had said that William lived on the top floor, but he wanted to check every nook and cranny. He heard a creak coming through his earbud. "What was that?" He whispered.

"Going up the stairs," Harley whispered back, barely audible and a sudden static making him even harder to understand as Peter went down the stairs.

He was about to turn around when he heard Harley curse under his breath, another creak followed and then … silence. "What is it?" Peter asked alarmed.

"He's home, get up here," Harley answered quietly.

Peter heard a door opening through his earbud as he tried to race up the stairs as quietly as possible. And then – a shot! And another!

"Don't think I haven't noticed you!" The voice was familiar from all the recordings they had re-watched a thousand times to identify William. It was definitely him and he had a gun!

"Peter!" Harley yelled, stereo from up the stairs and right into Peter's ear. His stomach turned and he jumped a few stairs at a time, racing to get to Harley before something happened.

Peter was almost upstairs when he heard another shot, a scream and the heavy _thud_ of a body hitting the floor. On the landing of the third story laid Harley, illuminated by the light coming out of William's apartment. A puddle of a dark substance – blood, Peter's smell told him – formed under his body. Peter froze.

William, on the other hand, took a step towards him with his gun raised. "No tricks," he warned.

"Okay. Promise, no tricks." Peter slowly raised his hands and in one fell swoop let himself fall to the floor and shoot a web to seal the muzzle of the gun. He landed right next to Harley's head, saw his friend had a hand pressed on his side and his chest rose and fell much faster than was normal.

"Damn brat," William cursed and tried to free his hand and the gun from the web.

"Shut up!" Peter had trouble keeping his hands still as he shot another sling of webs to tie William's hands together. He jumped at the man, not full-force since William was still a normal human, but hit him hard enough to crash into the wall and hit his head. He collapsed, looking unconscious. Peter didn't wait around to see if he was hurt; he had shot Harley!

The whole ordeal hadn't taken more than a few seconds, but Peter still rushed to be at Harley's side again. He shone the flashlight of his phone into the other boy's face. "Ugh," Harley gurgled and tried to raise a hand.

"No, keep still!" Peter took off his hoodie and pressed it against Harley's side. "We need to get you out of here. And stop the bleeding. And – and –"

Harley arched his back as if trying to get away from Peter pressing against his wound. His face was scrunched up and beads of sweat formed on his brow. His cry made Peter's whole body tremble. That was a sound he never wanted to hear again. Ever.

Tears formed in his own eyes as he tried to think about his next move. Yes, he needed to get Harley out of here. Preferably to a hospital or someone who could help stop the bleeding. And maybe get the bullet out, if it was still stuck in there. Peter had watched enough true crime shows to know that this was bad news. Maybe no hospital, then – they had to report gunshot wounds, didn't they? How would they explain this?

His thoughts ran wild. "Happy," he whispered at Harley, not sure if he actually heard him. "Maybe he can help. We need to go get him."

If Harley comprehended what Peter was saying, he didn't let on. He just writhed like he was in so much pain Peter couldn't even comprehend. And the hoodie got soaked more and more by the minute.

"Edith," Peter called out. "Call Happy?

"I'm sorry," Edith answered, "you're outside of a network connection. You have only local access to me."

"Damn," Peter cursed and he checked his phone. Sure enough, the call to Harley had been cut earlier and there was no signal whatsoever. Tears welled up in his eyes, which he wiped away and let the phone fall next to him to continue the pressure on Harley's wound with both hands."It's gonna be fine. I promise. It's going to be alright."

"Hey," Harley said, voice hoarse and full of pain. "I know. I just … fell."

" _Damn_." Peter couldn't keep himself upright anymore. He leaned over until his face almost touched Harley's stomach, until the stench of the blood was so intense it made him want to vomit. How was he supposed to get Harley out of here without hurting him? Without him bleeding out?

"Need a hand?"

Maybe it was a bit humiliating, but Peter shrieked. He hadn't sensed anyone coming, but there she was – Zelma stood right in front of him, leaning over Harley, too. Peter pressed the hoodie tighter on the wound, making Harley yelp.

"And here I thought I told you to stay out of trouble," Zelma said. Her hands were ice-cold as she gently put them over Peter's. "Let go."

Peter shivered and tightened his grip. "No. He'll … he's hurt."

"I know," Zelma said, "and unless you want him to stay like this, you should let go."

He looked at Harley's face, scrunched up in pain, and his flat breathing audible in the otherwise silent stairway. He slowly let go of the hoodie, but grabbed one of Harley's hands instead. It was wet with blood, too, but as far as Peter could see, it wasn't hurt.

"How did you," he chocked out until his voice left him, making way for a sob.

"I hear the distress of people with magical ties, and your friend here has some strong ones."

That was all the explanation Peter got, and he wasn't sure he fully understood it. A soft pink light illuminated the unconscious William, right along with the rest of the landing and Peter, Harley and Zelma as she pushed away the hoodie and did something … weird and magical. Peter wasn't sure what exactly, but he was ready to punch her as Harley started screaming. But it was over as soon as it started and something hit the floor with a dull sound. And then Harley collapsed again, breathing hard.

The pink glow returned shortly after, but not for long. "I'm afraid that's all I can do for you," Zelma said and rubbed her bloodied hands on the long skirt. "You know how to get out of here?"

"I, uh." Peter choked back more tears. "I know who to call?"

Zelma's head shot up and she looked like she was … listening to something else. "I need to go, but I can drop you off along the way."

"What about –" Peter looked around, first at Harley and then at William. "I mean, is Harley going to make it? Will he be fine?"

Zelma looked at him like she wanted to say something less than reassuring. "I'll take you to the outer skirts of Bourbon Street, but you need to _swear to me_ you're getting out of there. Then you'll have a chance."

Peter sighed heavily and let his head fall forward. Already the adrenaline rush made way for exhaustion and worry, but he pushed through. William would be fine eventually, he was sure he hadn't hurt him too much. They could come back for him later.

"I swear. Anything. Just … help me save him." Peter leaned forward again and slowly, carefully lifted Harley. He wasn't all that heavy by Peter's superhuman standards, but he wasn't sure how much the wound was closed or what he had to do in order not to open it again. Or make it worse.

The black hallway was as nauseating as ever, made worse by the fact that Harley was now properly unconscious and limp in Peter's arms. His legs shook with every step, but the short eternity was over as soon as it began. He collapsed to the ground again.

"Thank you," he choked out but when he looked up, all he saw was the blue door close and vanish. "Edith? Can you call Happy now?"

"Dialing now."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops, my hand slipped.


	6. Towering Guilt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apparently, I need to finish this fic by next weekend. So … three more chapters to go! Also I'll have y'all know it's downright agonizing finding the worst possible pun for each chapter title.

Peter couldn't stop pacing the weirdly sterile hospital room. He hadn't even known they still had something like this at the Avengers Tower, much less that it was even still in use. But here they were, Harley lying in bed motionless and hooked up to machines that were supposed to _beep_ in regular intervals and Peter walking a path into the floor because he couldn't stop.

He tried, just as Happy had told him Harley was out of surgery – and yeah, okay, maybe Peter was a little curious about this regeneration cradle by U-GIN, but hey, he was just a nerd! And someone who had gotten Harley involved in his personal drama and seriously injured. Had it not been for Zelma and Happy, he was sure Harley would be dead by now, and there wasn't a single thing Peter could have done to prevent it.

And now here they were; aunt May had rushed over as soon as Happy had called her, and Peter still froze every time he tried calling Pam to tell her they were alright. Because were they, really? Happy told him Harley was out of the woods, that he was going to be fine, but … he didn't look like it. Peter had never seen him so pale, much less in a hospital bed and unconscious. Not sleeping, but actually out of it.

Tears welled up in his eyes again and Peter stopped his pacing to wipe them away. There wasn't a single thing he could do or say, except apologize over and over again in a quiet whisper, and even then Harley didn't hear him right now. Which was the most important part. It was hard looking at him, and just knowing that even though they had recreated the tissue around the bullet wound and fixed him up good as new, he had lost a good amount of blood and wasn't safe in any way thanks to Peter.

A tiny movement stopped Peter right in his tracks. It was just the slight rustle of a bed sheet, but enough to have him raise his head and look at Harley. Who … was kind of pawing at the blanket and looking around slowly and confused.

Peter was at his side in a matter of seconds, grabbing Harley's hand and kneeling down in front of the bed. "Hey," he breathed, his voice not really up to normal standards yet. "You're fine."

Harley tried to say something, but only a dry cough came out. He cleared his throat. "What happened?"

"You, uh. Got shot," Peter mumbled, trying to avoid looking at Harley's face. He didn't want to see if he hated him now for getting him involved in Peter's mess and then paying the price for it.

"You mean I got pushed down the stairs again. By a gun."

Peter raised his head, eyebrows almost up at his hairline. Did Harley just make a bad joke? Really? And did he squeeze Peter's hand while doing so? It was so hard not to cry right now and Peter failed spectacularly. "I'm so sorry," he managed with a broken voice. "I shouldn't have let you go up first. I should have … I'm sorry."

"Pete. Hey." Harley tried to sit upright, but he winced in pain and fell right back onto the mattress. "Okay, not doing that anytime soon again. But Pete."

Peter couldn't help but smile a little hearing that nickname. "I'm so glad you're alive."

"Well, not much longer, my throat is killing me." Harley coughed again.

Peter shot up. "I'll get you some water! And a nurse. Or the doctor. Or –"

"Hey, Pete," Harley called after him as he was almost out of the door.

Peter stopped dead in his tracks and turned around, a little confused. "Yeah?"

"Where the hell are we?"

*

Peter continued to walk around in circles in the lounge as Happy called in a doctor to make sure Harley was actually fine. He knew he couldn't do anything to sway that result in any way, but he was still worried and couldn't keep still for a moment. What if there was something wrong? Or they had missed a splinter during surgery? Or some internal bleeding couldn't be fixed?

"Won't you try sitting down?" Aunt May asked for the third time now, looking rather uncomfortable on the way too big couch herself.

"I can't!" Peter stopped and pressed his palms together when he faced May. "I just can't. What if there's some damage that won't go away? I'd be responsible for that. What if he hates me?"

"Kid's going to be fine," Happy announced as he entered the lounge. "Doc said to rest a day or two, but he'll be up by the end of the week."

Relief washed over Peter in waves, making his knees go a little wobbly. Maybe he'd need to sit down, after all. But the more important question was: "Can I go see him?"

"I guess," Happy shrugged. "But he's calling his family, maybe you don't want to interrupt."

Yeah, okay, that was a fair point. So Peter went back to pacing as May and Happy watched him from the couch. They talked to him about his time in Rose Hill, about what was going on and Peter answered it as best as he could without revealing what they had been up to. How could he tell them what kind of mess he had gotten himself into again? They would be so disappointed. And angry with him. By all rights, they _should_ be. But Peter wasn't ready to face those consequences yet.

Peter's phone vibrated in the back pocket of his jeans. He almost dropped it twice by pulling it out way faster than he should have, what with his hands shaking and all. One more crack in the display wouldn't even be noticeable.

Harley: _mum stopped yelling_

Harley: _where u at_

Harley: _I'm bored af_

Peter didn't answer and instead raced down the corridor, skipping the elevator for the stairs because standing still wasn't even an option, even if it would be faster. He almost crashed into the hospital door a floor higher. "Happy said you were okay," Peter panted and rushed over to the bed to hug Harley tightly. "I'm so sorry I let this happen to you, please never scare me like that again!"

"I … I think you're strangling me," Harley choked out. But just as Peter wanted to let go, he felt his friend's arms around him and decided otherwise. "What's the matter?"

Instead of answering, Peter just shook his head and then nuzzled his face in the space between Harley's neck and shoulder. He smelled sterile and faintly like blood, not like himself at all, but his skin was warm and he was here and _alive_ , and that was all that mattered right now.

"Hey, you're not crying again, are you?"

Peter shook his head again. But maybe he was. His eyes burnt and his throat closed up again and he found it kind of hard to breathe. He didn't want to cry, not when Harley was the one who should by all rights be emotionally compromised.

"Good."

What he was about to do was apologize again, but a knock on the door kept him from opening his mouth. Miss Potts stood in the doorway where Peter had maybe forgotten to close the door again, smiling a little. "Sorry I couldn't come sooner," she said and entered, letting the door close behind her.

"Oh, hi Miss Potts," Peter said, reluctantly letting go of Harley and stepping aside.

"How you doin'?" Harley even had the nerve to ask, as if he wasn't the one in the hospital bed.

It made Miss Potts chuckle, though. "I should be the one asking, but I see you're getting better by the minute. A little better than you, I think," she answered and sat down on the bed next to Harley's legs. "Your mum called me and asked if you could stay a few days. Just to make sure you're a hundred percent okay. I hope that's fine with you."

"Yeah, 'course." Harley shrugged, which looked a little overly cautious and weird. Maybe he wasn't as fine as he wanted them to believe.

"Good. There's something I wanted to talk to you about."

"I, uh," Peter took a step backwards, "I'll leave you alone." He didn't want to interrupt whatever they were talking about, and he felt that his presence was unwanted.

"What, why," Harley prompted and shook his head. "He can stay, right?"

"I wanted to talk to both of you, yes," Miss Potts said and gestured for Peter to step closer. "Actually, I wanted to ask you something."

Peter frowned and looked at Harley, who just shrugged again. "What about?" Harley asked.

"Edith." Miss Potts didn't look the most comfortable right now, but Peter guessed it was a hard topic, what with it involving her dead husband and all. Even _he_ felt like it was something that should better be left untouched.

"Okay?" Peter edged a little closer. "What's up with her? Is something wrong?"

"No, not really, but you've been using her, haven't you? Actually I wanted to ask you guys if you needed some help with her programs," Miss Potts corrected herself and sighed quietly. "Tony … he liked to do things on his own. And when it went wrong, all he had to blame was himself. And he did, quite often so. I just want to make sure you know you can always ask if there's something you need, whatever you're doing right now."

"No, absolutely not." Peter shook his head. "I'm sorry, Miss Potts, but I involved Harley and he got hurt and I can't do that to any of you, too. I have to finish this on my own."

Because what other choice was there, really? Even if Miss Potts looked like she was just searching for the right words to put him down, that was something Peter had ample time to think about while Harley had been in surgery. And there was absolutely no way he would even try to make any of them help him any further.

"Are you out of your goddamn mind?" Harley snapped at him and Peter didn't even see the pillow coming at his face until it hit him. He was even too surprised to grab it before it landed on the floor. "Say that again, I dare you!"

But Peter just stood there, flabbergasted and blinking at Harley. "Uh, what?"

"I mean, you're kidding, right?" Harley raised an eyebrow at him and tilted his head, as if to prompt Peter to start a fight, right here and now, as if he weren't the one sitting in a hospital bed.

"I – I wasn't, actually," Peter answered, taking a step back for concerns of his own security. Maybe he had super-strength and better reflexes, but he seriously doubted he was a match against an angry Harley.

"Give me that pillow, I need to throw it at your face again."

"But you got _shot_ ," Peter argued while picking up the pillow and stepping closer.

"Yeah, I noticed," Harley deadpanned and held out his hand. "Give it."

Miss Potts looked between them, but didn't step up to keep Harley in check. In fact, she didn't say anything to Peter giving him the pillow and then standing there while Harley hit him on the arm with it. He probably deserved it.

"Now, you got anything else to say?" Harley prompted, but didn't wait around for an answer. "I know I'm not some superhuman guy who can walk up walls or whatever, believe me, I _know_. I _felt_ that. But I can do more than maybe get into MIT and be a goddamn _damsel_ that needs saving every other day. We started this together and we're gonna finish it together, and there's no way I'll die before that. Or let you do it alone. I don't care how capable you think you are working alone, you're not taking _one goddamn step_ without me out of this room. Got that, Parker?"

Peter flinched as the pillow hit his arm again. "You're not mad at me for … well, this?" He gestured at Harley.

"Are you kidding me?" Harley groaned and fell back onto the mattress, putting an arm over his face. "Pepper, he's stupid. You sure Tony wanted him?"

Miss Potts didn't hide her chuckle for a second. "I'm sure. Are you, though?"

Harley groaned again. "Fuck, I thought I was gay but I might actually be morosexual. Yes I'm sure!"

In all honesty, that was fair. Peter didn't have anything to say to that, because his first reaction was to ask Harley if he was actually sure he liked him. Which only proved that point further.

"Well, then," Miss Potts said, smiling at Harley. "In that case, I'll have some files sent to your computer. Another thing from Tony, but I wasn't sure you actually wanted it."

Before any of them could ask what files she meant, the door opened without knocking. "There you are!" Ned yelled and came running inside, followed by a disheveled looking MJ.

"What's going on this time?" She asked, looking from Peter to Miss Potts to what must be a weird guy in a hospital bed to her. "Peter, what did you do?"

"Nothing, I got myself shot, all alone like a grown-up" Harley piped up before Peter could start on a way too long ramble with way too many excuses again.

Miss Potts chuckled at the horrified faces. "Don't worry, he's fine. You must be Peter's friends."

"Yeah, hi," Ned said and rubbed a hand against his jeans before offering it. "Ned Leeds, pleased to meet you, Miss Potts. Big fan."

Miss Potts smiled at him. "Just Pepper is fine," she said, then looked at Peter. "Same goes for you."

"Oh, uh." Peter ducked his head. "Okay."

"MJ," she introduced herself and waved at Miss … Pepper. Then she turned to Harley. "And you gotta be Peter's crush."

Which shouldn't make Peter blush so hard. He had _kissed_ Harley already, thank you very much. Still, MJ found whole new ways to embarrass him in front of the guy he liked and that was the first and foremost reason she couldn't be trusted around strangers.

Harley took it in stride, even though his cheeks turned a little red, too. "Yeah, I noticed that, too."

"Stop!" Peter buried his face in his hands. "Just stop, please?"

"Oh no, you can't keep pretty people like him from us and expect us to be civil about it," MJ deadpanned. "That's rude."

"She's kind of right," even Ned backed her up. Peter knew for a fact his best friend didn't swing that way – or, well, maybe he was 98 percent sure, because Ned eyed Harley curiously.

"Guys," Peter pleaded quietly, not even looking up again.

"Happy got us to keep you company, how else are we going to do it?" MJ said and Peter could practically _hear_ her smile.

"Yeah, how else than to listen what you've been up to," Ned prompted. "With all the dirty little details."

Peter felt a tugging at his shirt and when he looked up, Harley pulled him to the bed so he followed and sat down. Which should be weird and he should feel even more guilty because Harley still was so nice to him. But Peter enjoyed being close to him too much. Maybe that was selfish, but Harley didn't seem to mind or notice. "We never finished Gravity Falls," Harley offered and put an arm around Peter's waist. "After the interrogation is over?"

"Yeah, don't think you'll be spared." MJ pointed at Harley and flopped down on the far end of the bed. "When Ned said _all_ the dirty little details, he meant it."

"I'll leave you to it, then," Pepper said and stood up, excusing herself from the room.

*

Peter didn't ask if Harley was sure he liked him for the rest of the day. And he absolutely didn't pace the room impatiently while Harley was away for tests the very next morning. Oh, and maybe he just tried to lie twice in his own face. At least he wasn't alone this time; aunt May had insisted on waiting with him today.

"You know," she said from her chair next to Harley's now empty bed. "You don't need to beat yourself up over this."

Peter didn't stop in his pacing. Maybe he should be surprised by those words, but aunt May had always known him better than he did himself, and she probably knew that Peter couldn't do anything about that. "I can't stop thinking about it."

"I know," she sighed and ran a hand through her hair. "And that's what makes you a good person, Peter. It really does. But it also makes you blind."

Now he stopped. "I got him hurt," Peter mumbled and shook his head. "He got shot and I'm responsible. I _saw_ all of that – well, heard, but same difference. I know that happened, I'm not blind."

"Don't you think that's very patronizing?" May leaned back in her chair and watched Peter fumble for words. When none wouldn't come out, she continued, "Harley made his choice to come with you. He volunteered to have you stay at his house, he volunteered to work with you on … whatever it is you won't tell me. And he volunteered to go with you, regardless of how it ended. Don't take those choices away from him."

Peter studied the floor in front of his feet. "I know," he mumbled. "I just … wanted to protect him, you know?"

"And you tried your best," aunt May said. She stood up and walked up to Peter to pull him into a hug. His best just never seemed to be enough.

*

Harley was fine, after all. Whatever Zelma did – and Harley made sure Peter told him every little detail about that – it had worked and the recreation cradle had done the rest. It wasn't perfect and Peter still could see a faint scar where the wound had been, which Harley showed off proudly and had Peter touch it.

"Feels weird, right?" Harley asked.

"Um … yeah." What was Peter supposed to answer to that? His brain didn't quite work yet, because as much as he was Spider-Man and examining something that had been a deadly gunshot wound just two days before, he was also Peter Parker and touching his crush and he _really_ had to make himself stop before it got weird.

Harley helped by letting the shirt fall down again, which made Peter pull back his hand. "They say you can't even feel the difference, but I can. But it doesn't matter."

"Are you sure?" Peter asked. Again.

"Look, I know you're worried and stuff." Harley put a hand on Peter's shoulder. "But I'm fine. I got the doc's permission to be reckless again."

"I don't think she phrased it that way," Peter doubted but couldn't help the small smile. "And you're … I mean, I know I asked – but you're sure you'll help find the rest of these people?"

Harley nodded. "Absolutely."

The ring of his phone startled both of them, and Harley pulled up a video chat request from his sister. "Hi, baby girl," he piped and waved with his free hand.

"You're disgusting," Theodora deadpanned. She looked a little disheveled, which was kind of obvious since aunt May and Pepper had kept her and her mum in the loop the whole time, always reassuring them that Harley was fine and would be walking again in no time.

"Aww, I missed you too." Harley's grin widened. "That's not why you called, is it?"

"Nope. I still hate you for almost dying." Theodora turned the phone's screen so Harley and Peter could see one of the computers in Harley's garage.

Peter frowned. "Didn't you lock them?"

"Oh, please," Theodora turned the phone just in time so Peter could see her roll her eyes. "I've known all the passwords since I was eleven."

"You brat," Harley exhaled, eyes wide and about ready to punch through the phone screen. "What did you do? Show me again!"

"There's a bunch of new mails from a Pepper Potts," Theodora explained. "I was just playing around a bit. Like, where did you hide Minecraft? I know it's on there! Anyways, if you're not coming back soon, I'm forwarding them to you."

Harley blinked at the phone, obviously as dumbstruck as Peter. "I … _are_ we going back?"

"How should I know?" Peter shrugged. "I mean, if you want to? But I guess we've got a few perks if Pepper lets us stay in the Tower."

"Guess so." He turned back to Theodora. "Forward them to me."

"Say 'please'."

"Let me phrase it that way." Harley leaned in a little closer. "If you don't get me those files, I'll think up the most unbelievable and agonizing death and will make it look like an accident and nobody will miss you."

Theodora stuck out her tongue at Harley. "Asshole."

And then she ended the call. When Peter and Harley asked about staying at the Avengers Tower, Happy gave them permission to stay and use most of the stuff in Mr. Stark's old lab to tinker around with. "We're still not sure what you're up to," he explained in his usual trying-to-be-aloof manner. "So it's better if you stay where we can keep an eye on you two. We're not sure who is the worse influence on whom yet."

The lab was pretty neat, to say the least. It probably couldn't hold up with what Mr. Stark had built in the Avengers Compound upstate, but it was still impressive, holo tech included in even the most simple tasks and with so many possibilities Peter didn't even know where to start. State of the art computers and even a holodeck similar to the one in the quinjet where Peter had built his latest suit, only much bigger and with much more options.

"Are you sure we can use all this?" Even Harley looked like this was Christmas for him.

"Absolutely." Happy gave both of them a gentle shove. "Do whatever you like. Just … don't set anything on fire, okay? Or make it explode."

"What about shooting stuff?" Harley asked.

"Absolutely not!"

"Not even for science?" Peter joined in.

" _No_!"


	7. Targets On Their Backs

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was so much more frustrating than it needed to be. I don't even know why. But it's finally done!

The glass doors to the Stark lab slid open and Peter swore he went deaf for a few seconds. Rock music blared so loud he could barely hear himself think all of a sudden. He frowned and looked around the room for Harley. The guy was in one of the corners hunched over a holotable and tinkering with something Peter couldn't quite make out, even as he came closer.

When Peter put a hand on his shoulder, Harley literally jumped and yelped, making Peter scream in response. "What's going on?!"

"Fuck!" Harley put a hand over his heart, then commanded the automatic VI running the tower to turn down the music to a more reasonable level. "You want to put me back in the hospital room?"

"Well, you want to make me deaf?" Peter shot back, then held out a tablet. "Look what I found."

"Oh, you've been looking into my mortal enemy?"

Peter wasn't entirely sure that Harley was joking, even with his lopsided grin as he leaned over to get a closer look at the data Peter had researched all morning. "The police took William in for questioning. Apparently there lived a guy in his neighborhood who heard shots and reported them coming from his building," Peter gave the summary as they scrolled through the records together. "They let him go, though."

"How did he convince the police?" Harley frowned.

"I don't know." Peter really didn't. He had tried to find out, but all he could find was that there hadn't been enough 'admissible evidence' or whatever.

Harley groaned and slapped at the tablet with one hand. "You should've let me stay in the building, how's that for _admissible_ ," he practically hissed, but Peter wasn't sure if it was directed at him or at the news in general. Probably the latter, because Harley loved being dramatic.

"Yeah, and then you'd have bled out and I would have been the one to explain that."

"True." Harley nudged him in the shoulder. "Come look at this."

He waved for Peter to come closer to the holotable, but Peter stayed where he was. "You know, this whole thing got me thinking," he said, waving the tablet.

"About?"

"Well, you know. If we're doing the right thing."

Harley turned around again. "Why wouldn't we?"

"I mean, he's just a _guy_ ," Peter explained and put the tabled down on another workstation. "All those people we've identified – they're not special. Not superhuman or whatever. They've been screwed over by the system and wanted to get revenge, and I … honestly, I can understand that. I mean, their methods are questionable –"

"I sure hope you think that, because one of them tried to kill me," Harley interrupted him with a raised eyebrow. "Pete, you and I both know how being screwed over by the system works. And yeah, okay, Tony helped us out, but still. Even if he hadn't been there, would you have gone on a murder spree and helped a guy take over the world?"

"Probably not?"

Harley huffed out a laugh. "You're the nicest guy ever."

"I did screw up, though."

"Yeah, well, we all have a bad day now and then. Yours doesn't involve killing people, though."

Peter kept his mouth shut about all the rage he had felt towards William after he had shot Harley. Not even just because had he helped Quentin Beck destroy parts of several European cities, but because he hurt his _friend_. Or, well, the guy he kept falling in love with. Whatever it was between them right now. And Peter would do a lot of questionable things he didn't even want to think about to protect what was dear to him, and if it came to actually killing a really bad person so he could save Harley instead … what he might do scared him. A lot.

"C'mon," Harley grabbed him by the arm and Peter followed to the holotable. "No more excuses. Marvel at this wonder of technology!"

And Peter did. Even if it was just half-done and nearly blew a hole in the Avengers Tower during its first test-run.

*

Harley looked like he wanted to shoot something with his stupid potato gun. Peter watched him fiddle with some metal plates, trying to get them to stick together like intended over a model of metal arms he arranged to resemble his body structure. But as soon as those two plates stuck, the rest of the makeshift-armor fell apart, littering the floor. Harley winced and took a step back.

"Damn it!" He threw the plates to the rest of the armor on the ground and turned his back on the mess.

Peter winced in sympathy from his place next to a workstation on the floor. Why Harley did exactly this and didn't build a Spider-Man-like suit with the available technology at the Avengers Tower, he didn't know. He had asked, sure, but Harley had just made a face and mumbled something about spandex and style. So Peter watched him stalk over to the almost forgotten energy drink on the workstation, take a sip and then sigh heavily.

"Can I help?" Peter asked, just loud enough so his voice could be heard above the rock music Harley insisted on playing.

"Nah." Harley ran a hand through his hair, momentarily distracting Peter from his sympathy at yet another assembling gone wrong.

"If you used EM pulses to correspond in the right frequency –"

"I said 'nah'," Harley interrupted him, slamming the empty energy can on the workstation and turning back to the fallen-apart model. "That won't work."

"It would," Peter insisted, though he wasn't sure if he should push that topic when Harley was already this frustrated.

"Not like I want it to!" Harley snapped and knelt in front of the plates and started arranging them neatly on the floor. He sighed. "Sorry, I just … you had any luck?"

Peter frowned at his tablet. He had been looking more closely into the next target they had settled on, but it looked like the guy had been swallowed up by the ground in-between the London attack and now. How hard was it to find a person with the tech they had available? And how had Mr. Stark always done it? There just _had_ to be some automated systems they could force the Avengers Tower AI to run, he was sure of it. Yet none of their tries had resulted in more than a snarky sounding ' _You don't have clearance for that_ '.

"I think so," Peter finally answered.

*

"Who's next again?"

Peter should have thought twice about riding the bus out to New Jersey. The last time they went on a ride to another city, Harley had gotten shot. And Peter's level of nervousness was already through the roof, but the address in the back pocket of his jeans and the fact that it wasn't as far as New Orleans made the whole situation a lot more bearable.

"Hey, talking to you." Harley leaned into his space, their shoulders touching. "Seriously, I can't pronounce that name to save my life."

Peter stiffened for a second before he remembered that yes, actually, this was okay. Harley wasn't mad at him. He still _liked_ him, for whatever that was worth. And then he relaxed against him, not able to keep the smile off his face. "I think it's … Guterman?" Peter tried both giving an answer and pronouncing the name correctly.

"That sounds horribly German," Harley laughed. "Never say it again like that."

He grabbed one of Peter's hands that had been fumbling with the hem of his shirt again and held it. Not so tight that he couldn't free himself, but Peter didn't want to. He just hadn't expected this. But Harley's hand was still so warm and a little rough and he never wanted to let go again.

Peter was glad he didn't have to, because the location on that piece of paper definitely had the right address. But after another half hour of searching for it after getting off the bus, and checking and double-checking with Google Maps, he and Harley frowned at the iron gate in front of them.

"No, that can't be right," Harley mumbled and grabbed the address from Peter. "Are you sure it's right?"

"Definitely," Peter nodded, though he didn't take his eyes off the gate. "But, I mean, is that how addresses are supposed to work?"

"How the hell should I know?" Harley handed him the piece of paper back. "I'm not dead, so obviously I wouldn't be listed as living … or, well, resting here."

With the gray overcast sky and the light breeze, entering the cemetery felt kind of weird. Peter's sense of danger piped up every now and then, but every rustle was a bird or a squirrel and every moving shadow on the ground had a tree overhead rustling in the wind. Finding Guterman's name on one of the tombstones should have been way harder, by all means. Peter didn't want to believe it to be that simple, not after the last time they tried to go after one of Beck's partners in crime. It looked pretty recent by dead people's standards and the date showed that he had only died around a month before. Peter shook his head.

"This is … weird," he mumbled, not really able to put all his skepticism and surprise into proper words. At least none of which would make any kind of sense, not in this situation.

"Did we overlook something?" Harley asked as he looked around. There weren't many people around, just a few older citizens and they were far enough away to not be able to overhear their conversation.

"I don't know." Peter pulled out his phone and looked through the surprisingly few files they had gotten on Guterman. "I mean, nothing obvious?"

"Damn." Harley ran a hand through his hair and sighed. "I thought this whole thing would be easier."

"Yeah?" Peter looked up, frowning.

"Yeah, I mean, it did sound like we'd swoop in, kick a bunch of people's assess, get them arrested and then you're good to go. Instead we've been to two different cities, I got shot and we're standing on a cemetery because someone thought it would be funny to make this an official address."

Peter couldn't help the laugh that wanted to escape his throat. But this would be a horrible place to do so, which is why he put a hand over his mouth. "You are horrible," he mumbled through his fingers. "Obviously things got a little complicated."

Their little trip hadn't gone unnoticed, as apparent by Happy blowing up Peter's phone with messages and unanswered calls half an hour after they left the cemetery and sat in a Walmart parking lot eating sandwiches. Their bus back to New York wouldn't arrive for another hour or so, and they hadn't taken anything with them. Not after their backpacks were still somewhere in New Orleans and they kind of lost all their stuff to a probably haunted apartment or something.

"Could you _please_ answer?" Harley asked after the fifth call went to voicemail. He wiped a few crumbs from his cheeks. "Your ringtone is driving me nuts."

Peter sat down the empty energy drink can. "Oh, so you're allowed to blast Pink Floyd and whatnot at full volume but Ava Max suddenly is the worst?"

Harley was a pro at staring contests. He didn't even flinch once for a minute or so of Peter side-eyeing him. Instead, he kept eating his sandwich and finally nodded after finishing. "It's AC/DC, you uncultured swine."

*

Harley got more and more frustrated by the day. It had been three days after their attempt to find Guterman, only to follow up on their research after getting back to the Avengers Tower and finding out he had committed suicide. Which, honestly, was a blow to their plan more than they felt sympathy for his wife, who had even published an obituary only a few days after the happening. Peter knew he should have found this. Mr. Stark definitely would have. He sucked at researching, but so did Harley, which made him feel better a little bit.

But the weird knot in his stomach ever since their trip to the cemetery stayed, and only got worse by the minute. None of them could ever live up to Mr. Stark, he knew that already, but things like that should have popped up on their radar. Harley had written a whole algorithm for spotting superhero news, and they couldn't even identify an address as a cemetery and made complete fools out of themselves while going after a dead guy.

Of course Peter felt bad for Guterman's widow. He felt bad for the guy's death, even. What if they could have prevented it? Or worse, what if they were _responsible_? What if Peter's actions in London drove him to that in some kind of way?

Harley managed to rip him out of his thoughts by exploding the half-assembled armor with yet another way too strong pulse. Peter's sixth sense kicked in and he dove behind the holotable, cowering next to Harley. "What was _that_?"

Harley slammed his fist against the concrete floor. "Dammit." He looked back up slowly, frowning at the mess he made. Whatever it was Harley had designated to keep the armored plates together, it clearly had a mind of its own.

Peter knelt next to him. "I told you to try –"

"No," Harley interrupted him as he got up again. "I will _not_ try a different frequency. It won't work like that."

It literally would, which was why Peter kept insisting on it. And Harley was intelligent enough to know that, too. "Why do you keep shooting me down?" Peter asked, more than a little hurt by this point.

He got Harley's frustration, he himself didn't feel much better. But it had gotten to a point where Peter didn't know how to help anymore. Harley barely even left the lab anymore, eating and sleeping in here, hunched over blueprints and holo demonstrations and his suit, and if it wasn't for Happy shutting down the power to this floor now and then, he wouldn't even shower.

Which was some hardcore dedication Peter admired, but Harley looked run-down by this point. His hair was messy because the only combing he did was with his fingers, his hands shook every now and then with too much caffeine in his bloodstream and the bags under his eyes couldn't be healthy anymore. Peter almost wished Pam was here to reprimand maybe even both of them if it came down to that. It hurt seeing Harley like this and frustrated, too. Whatever he was trying to do, it wasn't working properly.

"Leave me alone."

If Peter's senses weren't already superhuman, he would probably have missed those words. He bit his lower lip. "Why?"

"Because I say so," Harley snapped at him. "I can't concentrate like this."

Seeing him kneel on the floor like this, shoulders hunched and so … so _small_ and _helpless_ was everything that was wrong with this situation. Peter made a face, taking a step towards Harley instead. He wasn't supposed to be like that. He was supposed to be snarky and curse at everything and everyone and nobody was supposed to hurt him. Least of all Harley himself. Peter wanted to help, but he didn't know how. So he did the only thing he could think of and put a hand on Harley's shoulder.

Harley slapped it away immediately, shooting him a dirty look. "I said, leave me alone!"

Peter flinched back. "I was just trying to –"

"Help, yes, I know." Harley groaned and threw a metal plate at the nearest wall. It sailed down right in front of it. "But you _can't_!"

"Get yourself together," Peter snapped back. He didn't want to, but he also didn't like Harley behaving like this. Constantly tip-toeing around his moods wore Peter out, too. So he turned around and desperately wished for the lab to have a door he could slam. No such luck, though.

*

Peter kicked the shoes from his feet and let himself fall onto the bed in his room. Well, the room appointed to him at the Tower. Which didn't keep him from screaming into the pillow in frustration. He didn't know how to help Harley anymore. And he didn't know what to do instead. His head was full of jumbled thoughts; Harley had been so kind and helped him when Peter had been in a tight spot. Technically, he still was. But Harley's own frustration seemed to take over right now and Peter didn't know what to say, how to make it better, and even the research he tried to do on the still missing people on their list didn't get done. He pushed his head into a pillow and screamed for a minute.

Afterwards, Peter turned on his back and pulled his phone out of his jeans. Ned and MJ were at home again, not risking to potentially compromise Peter's location in case they were being monitored; same with aunt May. Happy stuck around, but he wasn't any help, either. He kept insisting that everything would die down soon, but Peter knew what a witch hunt was and the Daily Bugle seemed determined to burn him on a stake. So Peter did the only thing that seemed reasonable; he tried calling Ned.

It didn't take his best friend more than a few seconds to accept the video chat. "Peter!" He smiled at the screen, a little too close. "How you doin'?"

A small smile formed on Peter's lips. His nerves calmed down immediately and he didn't want to run up the walls anymore. "Hey, man. Everything okay?"

"Sure." Ned held the phone further away to show Peter a new Lego set on his desk. "Get your name cleared soon, you need to help me build this."

Peter leaned in closer as if he could see better that way. "No way!" His smile widened. "Is that the Millennium Falcon?"

"Absolutely!" Ned's excitement vanished a little after showing Peter the package more closely. "So, what's up?"

Peter frowned at the phone. "What do you mean?"

"You just called to talk about … well, nothing?" Ned frowned. "Look, I don't know the in's and out's of being a superhero, but I know _you_."

And yeah, okay, that was a fair point. So Peter sighed and flopped back onto the pillow, holding the phone over his head. "I don't know, it's about … Harley."

"What, your relationship is already over?"

"We don't even have one!" Peter couldn't help the blush creeping up on his face. "I mean, we kissed, but … that's it? I think? Ugh, I don't know. He hates me right now."

Ned pulled a face that clearly showed his skepticism. "You mean cuddling all day in a hospital bed and hunting villains together isn't a relationship?"

Peter dropped one hand over his face. "Not my point!"

"Oh, yeah, absolutely." Ned's laugh sounded sincere, but also kind of mocking. At least the following question wasn't just casual. "What happened?"

So Peter told him. About Harley's outbursts, his frustration and his absolute ignorance towards Peter's help. The more he talked, the more agitated he got, standing up and running around the room in circles while gesturing with his free hand. "I just don't know, he won't talk to me," Peter finally finished as he sat down on the floor in front of the bed. The knot in his stomach hadn't loosened like he had hoped, but instead tightened and made him feel like throwing up constantly. "He told me to get out and leave him alone."

"Well, you're obviously not going to do that, right?" Ned leaned in closer to the phone's front camera. "C'mon, you know better than that!"

Peter threw both arms into the air, waving his phone around. "I _don't_ know!"

Ned laughed in a kind of way that told Peter he didn't know how else to react. "Seriously?"

"What?"

"You're the smartest guy I know – only because you never properly introduced me to Mr. Stark – but you're going to let your boyfriend do all the work alone?"

That made Peter finally hold still and keep the phone in front of his face. "But he told me not to help."

"No, he told you not to take over his project." Ned stabbed the screen with a finger. "Remember when we had to dissect frogs in bio class?"

"You mean the day you screamed louder than any girls?" Peter smiled a little, but it faded as Ned shook his head.

"Not my point, either. You took the scalpel, you took the frog, and I was just … you know, standing there. And let you do the work. And then the teacher said to –"

"Oh!" Peter clasped a hand over his mouth.

"Yeah, oh." Ned nodded. "It's his project, not yours."

Peter sunk down against the bed frame further and let his head fall onto the mattress. "How could I be so stupid?" He groaned. "You're absolutely right!"

Ned's face had never looked so smug as when Peter looked back at his phone. "Say that again."

Peter huffed out a laugh and the knot in his stomach loosened a little. "You're right and you're my bestest friend in the entire world and I wouldn't know what to do without you."

"Again?"

"No way!"

"Aw, man!" Ned pouted at him. "Why not?"

But Peter couldn't keep the grin off his face. "Because I need to help my, uh … friend-not-boyfriend-or-whatever who hopefully doesn't actually hate me right now."

Ned laughed, and Peter joined in. "And then you kick some villain ass and help your bestest friend without whom you would be absolutely lost build the Millennium Falcon."

*

When Peter walked back into the lab, it was completely silent. That didn't seem right. There was _always_ music playing, no matter how much it got on his nerves and no matter how many discussions over which band it provoked. Peter looked around for a second and found Harley hunched over a table, head on his arms and … asleep. The mess of his armor littered the floor along with some empty energy drinks and a hoodie he probably had intended as a blanket.

Peter didn't know when Harley had slept the last time, much less in a proper bed, but this seemed to be a good thing. So he came back a few minutes later with a real blanket, not really sure if Harley would appreciate waking up in his own room or not. He looked kind of peaceful, though still exhausted. Peter hoped this was a good sign.

So he sat down at the holotable and pulled up everything Harley had done for his new suit. And suddenly, a whole lot of things made more sense. While he had thought that Harley for sure had been trying to emulate the Iron Man suit, now Peter could see that this wasn't the case. Sure, some metal plates were there and they were supposed to work together just like the Iron Man armor did, covering his arms and legs and torso, the ultimate design was a mix between Spider-Man and Iron Man. Something protective he could properly move in and fight. The weapons systems had Peter confused, though.

The sun was rising on the horizon, painting the sky outside the windows a light blue and pink and made the tiny clouds look like cotton candy while the New York skyline reflected the early light. No matter how often Peter had seen a sky like this promising a hot and dry day, it always made him stop for a few seconds to not only look, but walk over to the windows to bask in the sunlight and enjoy the view.

"The fuck?" Harley mumbled somewhere behind him, making Peter turn around.

"You awake?"

Harley blinked at him for a few seconds, not really answering. He just stared at Peter who still didn't move from his place at the window, while Harley straightened his posture and didn't look away. "Damn, I can't hate you when you look pretty like that," he blurted out after a few seconds.

Which made Peter lose another staring contest. The floor in front of him was suddenly a whole lot more interesting than Harley. It was still a mystery to him what exactly their relationship was, or how he should handle it, or … well, basically everything. Peter had never felt more stupid in his life than right now. He pressed his palms against each other and kept staring at the floor, even as he heard footsteps coming towards him.

And then Harley was there, putting his hands on Peter's hips. "Look, I know I've been an ass," he mumbled as he leaned down so their foreheads touched. "And I'm kind of sorry for that."

Peter couldn't help the smile as he hugged Harley properly. "I'm the one who should apologize. I didn't mean to be … well, like that. I just wanted to help."

Harley laughed quietly. "Yeah, that went well."

"Mm." Peter sighed and pulled back a little, even though it took much more effort than he wanted to let on. "Show me what exactly you want to do?"


	8. Magical Skills

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, finally some things come together!

"What do you think?"

"It's … purple. Is it supposed to be that much purple?"

Peter looked Harley up and down once more. The black body was almost completely covered in armor, except the joints, small plates of a vibranium-titanium alloy working together to fit the exact form of Harley's body while still covering him in a dark red with purple lines where the larger plates on the torso were joined together, forming lines toward the middle of his body and along his arms and legs.

"I guess so," Harley said and held up his hands to examine the finer plates almost completely purple, covering the black gloves he wore underneath. Same for the black combat boots. "You like it?"

And what was Peter supposed to say to that? The only thing not covered in noticeable plates but still bulletproof body was Harley's neck, only his face was bare, showing half a grin and red cheeks. "You look stunning."

"Yeah?" Harley stretched out his arms and twirled as if wearing a gown. "Feels much lighter than expected." He jumped up and down, stretching and in general moving more like he wanted to join the circus. Peter never would have thought Harley was that … flexible. And now he was blushing, too.

"Hey," Peter distracted himself and tried not watching too closely but not really able to look away, either. "What about your mask?"

Harley stopped what he was doing and Peter silently debated thanking or cursing him for it. He decided on neither as Harley grabbed what essentially looked like an armored ski-mask from the table and put it over his head. His improved Arc reactor in the middle of his chest lit up in a faint white-blue, bringing the suit to life.

Peter just stood there watching Harley test the flying mechanisms. Even with the mask on he could tell that Harley was happy, yelling and doing a loop and barely landing on his feet again right before throwing his arms into the air in triumph. He took off the mask and a wide grin was on his face as he stepped over to Peter, hugging him and laughing in his ear.

He startled a laugh out of Peter, too, who hugged him back immediately. "You okay?"

"Better than!" Harley seemed to calm down the longer he stood there touching Peter. "You know," he said after a while, "that was really … trying. All of you are so great and I thought I could never live up to that. And I felt so … helpless."

Peter pulled back a little so Harley could see his frown. "But – but you're great!" He put both hands on Harley's cheeks. "Suit or not, you're the kindest and most honest human being in the world, even if you say 'fuck', like, a hundred times a day."

If possible, Harley's cheeks got even redder but the wide smile remained in place. "What a fucking compliment."

*

It took them another two days to examine the armor more closely and wipe out all the remaining bugs with the mostly self-operating armor. And this time, Peter had done his research right. Not only that but Harley had helped, sitting almost too close next to him on the bed, which honestly didn't do anything for Peter's concentration. How they had managed to locate Janice, he didn't know. But he liked how little clothing there was involved during their breaks.

Peter really needed to get his mind out of the gutter. "Hey," he said as he swung around the corner of a skyscraper. "You need a hero name, too!"

He could practically _hear_ Harley frown over the comm unit implemented in their suits. "What, like you?"

"Yeah, well, we all have names!"

Peter was glad they decided to do this in the middle of the night. He had missed swinging through New York, to see his city with it's neon lights and tall buildings and even without all the stars and only a faint moon in the sky. The streets below them were still lively, lampposts illuminating people walking by, grabbing cabs and leaving stores after a bit of late-night shopping.

"What about Iron Man II?"

"Are you kidding me, darlin'?" Harley laughed and when Peter looked over his shoulder, he saw his friend flying behind him, the Arc reactors dull enough not to draw attention even in the darkness and the purple connection lines between the armor equally illuminating. Their test runs had been successful, and even if Peter couldn't see below the mask he could certainly imagine the smile on Harley's face.

"Why not?" Peter still insisted, because honestly – if this stupid idea prompted Harley to call him _darlin'_ , how had he any right to complain? "What about Iron Boy, then? Or … Iron Lad?"

Harley's laugh rung in his ears. "If you don't stop that now, I'm calling myself Wonder Boy!"

*

The apartment building they sat on was so different than the one in New Orleans. For example, it had more than zero tenants and more than two stories. Peter and Harley sat on the roof, watching a smaller building in which still burnt a few lights.

"You sure this time it'll work?" Harley couldn't help but ask. "You know, if you get me bleeding out on a dirty staircase again, I'm going to think it's personal."

Peter frowned at him below his mask. He really didn't want to think back at this. Even the memory of Harley lying there before Zelma showed up made his stomach turn and he grabbed Harley's arm in some kind of weird reflex to make sure his eyes didn't trick him and he was really sitting next to Peter.

"Chill out," Harley said and touched Peter's lower back. "I'm fine."

"I know," Peter mumbled and shook his head. He knew Harley was fine, he had touched the faint scar more than once and knew there wasn't anything that could hurt him anymore. And the armor worked just as intended, even though a hot weapons test with Harley _inside_ the suit hadn't been the way he'd wanted to find out. But Peter couldn't think about that now; he needed to focus.

They turned back towards the apartment building in which they had located their next target. Harley fiddled with his suit and pulled up a holographic keyboard and monitor over his right arm and started typing. Even with one hand, he was pretty fast, Peter had to give him that as he watched Harley pull up the security system of the building. Peter leaned over and watched as Harley disabled it with little to no problem.

"Okay, we can enter. I overwrote the system, so security's down for at least five minutes."

Peter nodded. "That's a pretty neat idea," he commented and pointed at Harley's arm. He hadn't known all the details of the suit up until they had looked at the finished blueprints, and even then it was hard to imagine the kind of stuff Harley could do with it.

"Yeah, well, I played a little too much Mass Effect," Harley shrugged and stood up. "Want a power-out, too?"

"What about the evidence?"

"True." Harley shrugged and grabbed Peter by the waist. "Then let's go."

Swinging from roof to roof was a sure way to be seen from at least a few windows, and in a highly populated area Peter still wasn't too sure if anyone saw him. He couldn't risk that before they had everything. The financial district was one thing, but also Peter could be happy with this kind of arrangement. Sure, Harley's armor was kind of hard and poked Peter's side in a weird way, but also it was Harley beneath it, so he couldn't complain one bit. So getting from roof to roof that way actually had it's perks.

"I don't get it," Harley said as soon as they were on the roof and on their way to the staircase.

"Get what?"

"You live in New York. How come the security anywhere is so shitty I could hack the system with gum and a paperclip?"

Peter stopped and frowned for a second. That … was something he had never wondered about. He caught up to Harley before answering. "Dunno, it's just the way it is."

They made their way through the staircase down to a lower level. It smelled way cleaner than Peter's apartment complex and there wasn't any graffiti on the white concrete walls. Nothing compared to the smell of weed and alcohol and the colorful scribbles covering every inch of every wall, even the ceiling, and even the neighbors weren't screaming, yelling at their kids or each other.

Even picking the apartment door's lock – which looked just as white and non-threatening as every other door in the building so far – proved to be way easier than it should be, according to Harley. They weren't greeted by a gun, either.

Instead Janice shrieked and jumped up from the couch as Harley and Peter entered, falling over herself and the coffee table as she tried to … well, Peter wasn't sure what she was trying to do. They blocked the only entrance to the apartment.

Harley flew over her head, almost hitting the lights in the process, and slammed down in front of the room Janice wanted to run into. "You're not getting away."

"Come on," Peter sighed and removed his mask. "A little less threatening?"

Harley shrugged in a way that said he was not really sorry, and in fact didn't actually care if he scared Janice. Which … okay, yeah, Harley kind of had a point. She _did_ help Beck, after all. And now she looked completely shocked as she saw Peter walk toward her in the most innocent way he could muster while dressed as the very same Spider-Man Mysterio's accomplices made look like a mass murderer.

"What do you want from me?" Janice put her arms around her and hunched her shoulders. She inched towards the window, away from Harley and Peter, and put the couch between them.

They exchanged a look. Peter couldn't tell Harley's expression under the mask, but he was pretty sure neither of them knew how to properly handle a situation like that. Then again, they weren't prepared for a gun, either, and that had gone downhill way faster.

"We don't want to hurt you," Peter said and raised his hands in what he hoped was a non-threatening way, one of them still holding his mask. "We just want some answers."

Janice frowned and shook her head. "I don't know anything!"

"Yeah, I'd say that too if I don't want to sound suspicious," Harley claimed and shrugged. "Doesn't work. There's a video you should be talking about."

"What video?" Janice's voice rose slightly.

"The one which made me look like a mass murderer," Peter explained and tried not to sound too offended. Which probably didn't work, because honestly! How could someone do a thing like this? Ruin his life in the worst way possible?

"That wasn't my idea, I just supplied the …" Janice's eyes widened and she swallowed dryly. "… the original file."

"Which shows?" Peter asked. He couldn't let his voice shake in the slightest.

"You know what."

"Look," Harley sighed and somehow his mask looked … annoyed. "I'm not the nice guy here, and you're straining my patience."

Janice inched closer to the window. "Well, _you're_ the one breaking into my apartment and threatening me!"

"We're not, though." Harley looked around the clean, almost minimalist room. "Well, I mean, I could find a reason to. Your interior design sucks pretty hard."

"We just want to know what was on the original file," Peter reminded Janice. "Then we'll be on our way."

"I can give it to you," Janice offered, which sounded suspiciously nice. "Just leave me alone and let me live my life! You've already ruined everything. What we – well, what Vic and Will did was payback. You don't deserve better!"

"You wanted to murder innocent people to make yourselves look better!" Peter clenched his fists. "Of course I had to stop you!"

Janice pulled a face. Her defensive stance shifted a little and made her look slightly more aggressive. She stepped forward, before thinking better of it and inched back against the window. "We just wanted to be heard. Nobody listened, and Tony Stark was always in the spotlight and claimed _our_ inventions for himself! And then you come around, a kid, and claim Stark's legacy and you don't even want it. We wanted to make the world a better place, even if it meant sacrificing a few lives, and then you came around! Can you really blame us for taking revenge? For ruining you? You're going around introducing yourself to complete strangers by name and taking your mask off every five seconds. How were we supposed to ignore that opportunity?"

"Was she …" Harley gestured at Janice. "I mean, that did sound like full-on monologuing, right?"

"Kind of," Peter shrugged. "You think we got everything?"

"Oh, yeah, absolutely."

"Edith, stop the video," Peter announced and smiled right into Janice's shocked face. "You're not the only manipulative one."

" _Confirmed_ ," Edith said. " _Video saved_."

"Yeah, there's me too," Harley piped up and Peter could practically _hear_ his grin.

"What did you do?!" Janice screamed at them. "You shouldn't even be able to use Edith!"

"Yeah, well," Peter shrugged. "We're teenagers on summer break. You really think boredom won't do this to us? Also, we made her way cooler."

Janice looked between them, confused. "Will encrypted her."

"Yeah, with the most obvious movie reference in history." Harley shook his head. Peter swore up and down he managed to look disappointed. "And we broke his code. And then made contact lenses out of her, thank your buddy Beck for the idea, by the way."

Peter couldn't keep himself from laughing. He stepped over to Harley for a high-five. "Now," he then said and turned back to Janice. "That original file you mentioned?"

Janice huffed. "Even if I give it to you, they still can stop you."

"Yeah, about that." Peter stepped toward Janice and held out his hand. "The file, please. We really, really don't want to hurt you or torture you for information or whatever you would do. So … got anything else to say before handing it over?"

*

She hadn't, and so Peter and Harley were holed up in the lab once more trying to decode it. This file was much more complicated than the Edith hack, and Peter couldn't even read a single line of code that made any sense whatsoever or referenced yet another movie. Whoever had thought of this encryption really didn't want it to fall into the wrong hands. Deleting it from Edith was a masterpiece of work, and this code took it even a step further.

"Anything I don't get?" Peter asked while leaning against Harley, who had put an arm around him and now shook his head.

"Not a thing."

Damn."

"Oh, did you just curse again?" Harley laughed and kissed Peter on his temple. "I'm such a good influence on you."

"You're really not," Peter chuckled but turned his head to kiss Harley properly nonetheless.

They only broke apart when Harley's phone started ringing. He fumbled for it in his pocket without letting go of Peter, and accepted a video chat invite from Theodora. She looked a little disheveled but grinned wide right into the front camera with her mum in the background. "Guys, you won't believe what happened!"

Harley and Peter both looked a little dumbfounded. Especially when Theodora raised a hand and it started glowing golden. "What the fuck, Theo?" Harley stammered.

"I've been invited to a school!" Theodora laughed and looked so happy. The video got a little blurry as she started jumping up and down. "Like, for magic! I don't have to hide that anymore!"

"You _what_?" Peter forgot how to blink for a few seconds. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. "This looks just like …"

"Yeah, this woman – Zelma – came around and invited me!" Theodora stopped jumping and turned to look at Pam. "And mum said I can go!"

"How – how long did you –" Harley didn't finish his sentence. Peter saw him shaking his head out of the corner of his eye. "You're my _sister_ , how the fuck did I not know that?"

Theodora turned back to them, grin still wide but hand thankfully not glowing anymore. That sight kind of stressed Peter out a little. "I dunno, but that's kind of how I knew your passwords," she explained, smile slowly fading. "I mean, I can't – I don't know the exact letters and stuff. But …"

"… like when you unlocked the screen when you touched the keyboard," Peter thought back of that happening and Theodora nodded. "We thought we hadn't locked it."

"I think you did."

"And now you're … what, going to learn how to control it Harry Potter style?" Harley sighed heavily. "I should have known. I mean …"

"Yeah, no, I'm good at keeping secrets, unlike you." Theodora cocked her head and the impish smile reappeared fully. "You remember how you said you had a secret and then spilled that you're gay the next second?"

Harley opened his mouth, then closed it again without uttering a sound. "That – I … can't argue with that." He sighed. "Wait, what did you say the woman's name was?"

"Um, Zelma."

"Miss Stanton, one of your professors," Pam said, smiling in a much kinder way than her daughter. She then came closer and looked at Peter and Harley. "You boys doing okay, too?"

They shared a look, the name too familiar to not recognize. "We're fine," they answered at the same time.

"Really? Her?" Peter whispered. "That means she's going to …"

Harley shrugged as an answer, then faced Theodora. "Listen here, you lil' shit. Whatever you do, stay away from the busy streets."

"What?" Now Theodora was the one frowning. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"Just …" Harley groaned. "I have to spell it out for you? Take care!" He looked like he was in actual physical pain saying those words. Peter couldn't relate for a bit, he didn't have any siblings, but seeing Harley and Theodora together always made him smile. It was so obvious they cared about each other, yet they seemed to deny not being on the verge of committing homicide all the time.

Theodora rolled her eyes. "You're annoying, I'm ending the call now."

"Don't you dare –"

"Talk to you later, chuckleheads!"

Pam called a few minutes later to give them the details, but basically Theodora was supposed to start school next week and would be going to New Orleans tomorrow. She also asked about Harley and Peter and when either of them would be coming back.

"I don't know," Harley said. "I mean, do you want me to … it's almost September?"

Pam sighed. "Look, you know I've always wanted the best for you. I wanted you to finish school, maybe even get a scholarship and have a better life than the one I can give you. But if your plans changed and you'd rather stay in New York, then I guess I have to live with your decision."

"My plans haven't changed!" Harley shook his head while Peter watched from a few feet afar. He had tried to give them some privacy, but that would include Harley talking more quietly. So he sat there and pretended to look at the code.

"Are you sure, honey?"

"Yeah," Harley nodded at his phone. "Look, mum, I have to go – I got an idea on … well, our plan. But I love you and I'll come back, promise."

"I swear to God if your _plan_ involves getting shot at again, I'll come around and show you how to fear your life!"

Harley chuckled. "Love you, too."

*

Said idea didn't work. Just like the other dozen they tried over the next couple of days, this time with a little more sleep. Or, well, not being in the lab. They still talked until the sun almost came up and didn't get much sleep, but Harley wasn't in the mood to blow up into Peter's face again. And Peter finally got Happy's routine down and managed to get more coffee way more quickly now when they were supposed to sleep.

"Geo-coding!" Peter finally yelled.

Harley jumped right next to him; he had been busy improving his suit and adding sort of weapons to it. "What?"

"It's locked to a location!" Peter waved him over and they looked at the encryption again. "Well, the first layer is, anyways. I checked it on a hunch and it matches longitude and latitude."

"Damn, you're good, darlin'." Harley leaned over his shoulder and kissed him on the cheek, absolutely not making Peter blush, nope.

*

It had to be New Orleans. Again. Neither of them was big on the idea of going back there, but they kind of didn't have a choice. And of course taking the quinjet involved telling Happy about their plans, but getting there on a Greyhound was out of the question. Neither of them wanted to submit themselves to the ordeal of hiding and being crammed in a seat for a day again. And if something went wrong again … well, Happy wasn't Iron Man, either, but Peter felt much more comfortable having back-up in the same city.

"You boys sure you don't want me to come with you?" He offered for the fifth or sixth time on their two-hour-trip.

"Pretty much," Harley answered as he suited up. And maybe Peter should do the same since they would arrive in about ten minutes, but staring at Harley's naked back was way more interesting. He had to press both hands against his jeans so he didn't touch Harley in ways that were absolutely inappropriate right now.

"Yeah," he forced himself to say and closed his eyes. After taking a few deep breaths, Peter opened them again and avoided looking at Harley as he got his own suit out. Maybe re-claiming his Spider-Man identity right now was too soon, but going into this city again without any kind of protection? That wasn't going to happen anytime soon. Or ever.

"Thanks for the ride." Harley seemed ready to go even before the quinjet fully touched down outside the city. "Catch you later!"

"Hey!" Happy yelled after them and they stopped, turning back around. "If anything goes wrong –"

"We'll call," Peter said before putting the mask in his jacket he wore along a pair of jeans above the suit. He would stand out more than Harley, who just … well, in his words, _didn't give a fuck_. And also wasn't wanted for first-degree murder, so he could walk around in his armor and with the helmet tucked under his arm and not be noticed.

At least this time they had a general idea of where they were headed. Which involved a stroll down Bourbon Street, and yeah, Zelma had kind of warned them to stay away from there. But what was she going to do? Stop their plan? Yeah, Peter didn't think so. He doubted she would even know they were around, what with that school Theodora now went to and everything. And nothing happened, anyways – at least not while crossing Bourbon Street and making their way towards Mississippi River.

When they walked through Jackson Square to get to the river, though, some weird things started happening around them. It looked like a regular park with some kind of really small castle Peter had never seen before and a statue in the middle of the park, a rider with a sword manning a horse with the front hooves in mid-air. A pretty classical depiction, but still lots of people seemed to be drawn to it. Literally, Peter noticed as he saw two guys in their twenties sit in front of the statue and draw it.

There were enough people around that Peter hadn't anticipated anything weird happening. Especially not a bush stretching out its branches towards him, which made Peter jump and collide with Harley. "Did you see that?"

"What, that?" He looked at Harley, who pointed at the monument of the man on horseback. Which … moved. Just a little at first, the hooves lowered a little and the rider turned his head ever so slightly.

Then the horse shook its head and the rider pointed his sword in their direction. "Charge!" He howled, his voice unnatural and booming all through the square. But the people around them didn't even seem to notice that something _really_ weird was going on.

Peter and Harley jumped to the side as the rider charged at them, swinging his sword as if they were the only people here and he needed to kill them. Peter rolled over the grass and almost into the weird bush.

"What the hell?" Harley yelled and came to his feet on the other side of the path, putting on his helmet and flying out of range.

"Dude, I don't know." Peter shook his head, then jumped out of the way again as the rider came around and charged at him.

"You are to be diminished!" The rider yelled. "Enemy of magical chaos!"

"We're not who you think you are!" Peter tried raising his hands, not really sure what he was supposed to do. This was a statue. A moving statue. It wasn't like they came with a manual.

"No, but I guess we are," someone behind Peter said. He kind of knew that voice, but couldn't put his finger on where from. "Duck!"

Peter didn't know if it was directed at him, but his sense of danger was all about the weird statue dude, so he decided to trust the person behind them and let himself fall on the grass. He still watched what was going on, which was a golden stream of warm energy hissing above his head and something white-and-blue charging towards the statue. It looked spiky and lanky at the same time, a feat not easily achieved.

The energy beam or whatever it was hit the horse and the spiky … whatever they were tackled the rider to the ground, snapping the sword in half in the process. The whole ordeal didn't last more than a minute or so, but Peter still had problems wrapping his head around it.

"You okay?" Finally, the owner of the familiar voice came up to him and Peter stared at Theodora's face. She wore what might easily be a school uniform, and held out her hand to him.

Peter took it. "Yeah, I'm okay. Harley?" He looked around, but Harley was fine; hovering behind a tree in his suit and slowly coming closer to the blue person hacking away at the statue. People around them seemed to start noticing them, one or two even taking pictures.

"I'm fine," he said and landed next to Peter. "You?"

Peter nodded, then turned back to Theodora. "Who is … well, this?" He asked, pointing at – oh well, he didn't even know how to describe this person. It looked like sunlight reflected on their skin, and their dark red eyes squinted at the broken statue, now lying still and harmless on the ground. When Peter looked back to the pedestal it had come from, another identical one sat there.

"Oh, that's Toth," Theodora explained with a small smile. "He's really nice."

"Yeah, he looks like it," Harley said and even beneath his helmet, Peter could hear the sarcasm.

"I think that's enough?" Theodora yelled after Toth.

He stood up and came over, his own school uniform only consisting of bright blue jeans and shoes. He waved at Peter and Harley.

"Hi," Peter said and tried to cover up his curiosity with a smile. "Peter. Nice to meet you."

Harley took off his helmet. "Yeah, man. Thanks for helping out. What the hell was that?"

Toth shrugged and looked at Theodora. "He's not much of a talker," she explained, then waved her hand in the general direction of the broken statue. "And that was … something that attacks magic users, I think. We haven't covered it yet, and Zelma only said to watch out for them. Apparently they appear when they sense magic or something and … yeah, well, you've seen the rest."

Peter couldn't help but remark how much calmer she looked. Not the angry teenager blowing up into Harley's face as he had come to known her. But way more comfortable. She smiled at Toth and hooked her arm around his like it wasn't weird, like he didn't look like ice.

"We did," Peter managed and swallowed. "So, you're, uh … still human, though?"

Theodora laughed in his face and Harley nudged him in the side. "You can't just ask people if they're human!"

Peter smiled along, but shrugged. "Well, what do I know."

"Anyways, what are you doing here?" Theodora asked. "Already missing me?"

Harley rolled his eyes. "You wish."

"No, we're looking for the docks," Peter explained. "With a bunch of warehouses?"

"Looking like that?" Theodora asked and pointed at Harley. "I've been away for not even a week and you go around building a gay Iron Man suit? What the fuck?"

"Yeah, don't think you're the only special one." Harley ruffled through Theodora's already messy hair.

She huffed and took a step back. "Well, I don't know about any warehouses. Can you help out, Toth?"

Toth made a sound like icicles clinking together, high and quiet and kind of … beautiful. Peter blinked at him for a few seconds. Was there a dictionary for that?

"I think that's a yes," Theodora said. "I mean, we could show you the way, if you want. If that's not weird for you?"

"Why would it be?" Peter couldn't think of a weirder thing, to be honest. But he was a hero-turned-mass-murderer and Harley built an Iron Man suit Tony Stark would be proud of and Theodora could do magic and was friends with a human-looking icicle. So … there were worse things.

"I don't know. Because of this?" She held up her hands, which glowed a little golden.

"Nah, my superhuman boyfriend beats that," Harley deadpanned and put his arm around Peter. "Show the way!"

Peter couldn't keep the blush from his face. He watched Theodora and Toth turn around and walk in the direction they had come from, which kind of showed them not so subtly they needed to work on their orientation skills.

"So … I'm your boyfriend?" Peter half-whispered, not really sure if he wanted an answer to that. Especially if the answer could be 'no'.

But Harley laughed and held him a little closer. "Yeah? You think I just kiss anyone?"


	9. A Triumph

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh God, I'm getting emotional. Last chapter and all.

"Where did you get those?" Peter asked as he dodged a drone coming at him. He swung from one side of the weirdly huge warehouse – seriously, did they all come in this size? – to the other, webs hanging from the walls and metal beams on the ceiling. He came to a halt near the ceiling, hands and feet grabbing the scratchy concrete. Harley dodged a drone on the other end of the hall, raising a hand and releasing a shockwave. The drone swerved and crashed into a metal beam, but however it was built, it was strong enough not to break.

Victoria cursed. She stood near the far end of the warehouse, the furthest away from the entrance on a little podium with a control center. "You didn't think you destroyed all of them, did you?" She asked, almost screaming and her voice echoed through the otherwise empty hall.

"Damn, you _do_ know they can kill people?" Harley piped up. He did half a somersault in the air, balancing out with all thrusters so he didn't crash into a beam as he dodged another round of bullets.

"That's the whole point!" Victoria turned to William standing behind her. "Do they have anything else besides bullets?"

Peter had to concentrate to hear the mumbled words, but he guessed something along the lines of, "No, the good ones are on the bottom of the Thames."

They had known that William had stayed in New Orleans after he shot Harley, and that he had been able to contact Victoria before Peter and Harley arrived at the warehouse. But even though this played right into their hands and they had a plan, Peter found it difficult not to charge at William and hurt him. He wasn't over his anger and despair of seeing Harley bleed out on the floor, and he desperately wanted to show William just _how_ dangerous Spider-Man could be.

Peter jumped to a metal beam as another drone showed up right in front of him, blowing holes into the concrete wall. Harley flew by him and kicked it into the wall it was currently shooting. The shockwave of the small explosion almost knocked him to the ground, though. "Hey, be careful with those!" Peter yelled after him.

"Yeah, no shit!" Harley shot back. "Couldn't have told me that earlier?"

"Well, I thought you knew!" Peter looked around. About a dozen drones were still active, and they needed to be careful with them.

"Knowing won't help you!" Victoria piped up. "I'll have you dead for what you did to us!"

"I thought the world was threatened by evil elemental things and we needed the Avatar!" Peter crashed into a beam as he narrowly dodged a few bullets, slamming right into it stomach-first. He groaned and held onto the beam to keep himself upright. Peter shook his head to clear it.

"Let go," Harley prompted and he did exactly that without question, only feeling a hint of the shockwave that crashed the drone into the same beam and disabled the levitation mechanism. It swirled down to the ground like a fly without wings and crashed.

"Thanks, man!"

"Really?" Harley flew past him, a drone right on his heels. "You _man_ me? What are we, strangers?"

Peter swung up toward the ceiling, shooting a web at the drone with his free hand and keeping it from shooting Harley. He swung it upward so it crashed into the ceiling, all the while being glad the mask couldn't show his flushed cheeks. "I need to concentrate!"

"Oh, no, keep going like that," Victoria said and when Peter stole a glance at her, she and William worked together at controlling the drones. "It'll make your death quicker."

"Want to monologue, too?" Harley asked her and for a few seconds, Peter honestly couldn't tell if he was serious or not. "I mean, please do – I don't get why you would want to kill a bunch of teens."

"I don't necessarily want to _kill_ you," Victoria answered, though Peter only got half of that.

He was busy running up the wall and doing a backflip right before he crashed into the ceiling so the drone would hopefully crash into it. Whatever Victoria and William did, though, the drone stopped right in front of it and turned. Peter webbed up the weapons systems in his free fall right before it could shoot and Harley came basically out of nowhere, kicking it up at the ceiling where it belonged.

"But you weren't here if you hadn't found some things on Edith," Victoria guessed pretty much what they had been up to. "Can't you understand me a little? Grow up and try to work your way around the world, and you'll see that one guy having a bad day and firing you can ruin your entire life!"

"No need to go full-out Terminator on us, though!" Harley complained.

"Oh, but we have to," William piped up all of a sudden. "If we can't destroy Tony Stark, we'll have to make do with destroying his legacy."

"Pete!" Harley yelled and Peter jumped at him, grabbing his hand mid-flight. "We got everything?"

"Guess so," Peter answered and let himself be lowered to the ground. Harley looked around and pulled up the holo-keyboard, typing so fast Peter found it hard to follow his fingers. So he concentrated on webbing up the drones that came near them, scrambling their sensors before Harley made them explode manually.

Victoria and William stood perfectly still as they walked toward them. "Thanks for the confessions," Harley said and took of his helmet. His hair was an absolute mess and Peter had to force himself not to straighten it out. Along with the triumphant smile, he looked absolutely _gorgeous_.

"We'll have the video file sent to the police," Peter said and webbed up William's legs as he turned and tried to run.

Victoria stood perfectly still. She didn't even flinch as Peter webbed her hands to the console she had used to control the drones with. "That was your plan all along?"

"Oh, yeah," Harley shrugged. "You know, we still need to work on our sense of direction, or we'd have been here an hour earlier."

"Yeah, but we knew you and William worked under false names and had rented out that warehouse, so we just needed to get you here for the false alarm," Peter explained and couldn't keep his own smile at bay. He took off his mask, too. "We just needed to keep the drones at bay long enough to get admissible evidence."

"You're just like Stark, both of you," Victoria breathed.

"You know," Harley said and traded a look with Peter. "I don't think so. I mean, it's still a huge compliment, but instead of resenting him for trying to make us better, we're giving our best to follow the example he set."

"Nobody can live up to his legacy," Peter continued. "That's just impossible. He died for all of us. All we can do is try to make the world a little more the way he wanted it to be: safe and good."

*

_CNN Special: Spider-Man Redeemed_

Peter smiled at the TV from his place on the bed. He watched the news reporter play excerpts of the video material they had worked so hard on, mostly of Janice and Victoria's faces. "More at 10," the reporter finished and Peter snuggled a little closer into Harley's arms.

They laid on the bed in the Avengers Tower, two days after their trip to New Orleans. Organizing the files and confessions and sending them to all the news stations they knew had taken a toll on their mental health, especially since they had to keep them exclusive to the various stations or otherwise they probably wouldn't have been so interested. They hadn't even considered the Daily Bugle on the list they made for most exposure.

"Hey, look," Harley said and put his phone in front of Peter's face while hugging him a little tighter with the other.

_Buzzfeed on Spider-Man's True Intentions – and a new ally?_

Peter blinked at the screen, where not only his own face but Harley's stared back at him. "Wait, that's you," he breathed. "Without your helmet."

"Yeah." Harley sighed. "You really thought they would go batshit crazy about the scientists and leave me out of it?"

They had known this probably would happen. They had prepared for it. But still, seeing Harley's face so real and unable to take it back was … something. Only a few lines in that article were dedicated to Victoria and William being arrested and charged with murder and faking their identities and whatnot. "What do you think your mum will say?"

"Guess I'll be grounded for forever," Harley chuckled. "Come visit me in prison?"

They switched channels, smiling at every news station picking up on their exclusive part of the Spider-Man Redemption, taking apart every frame of every video file they had sent, commenting on the audio tapes and playing unabridged confessions. Peter hadn't known if he should have included his own commentary on this, but had decided against it. Letting the videos speak for themselves was probably better.

Back on CNN, the reporter just finished his commentary on what the confessions meant. "Now, for all of you wondering how this is connected to the release of Spider-Man's identity and the video of him possibly executing dozens of civilians," he said as a thumbnail of another video appeared on the screen. "We will now play the unabridged video, thus rewriting everything we know on the fight in London almost two months ago."

Just as the video they had gotten extracted from Janice's file started, the door to their room slid open. "Peter Benjamin Parker!" Aunt May stopped in the doorway, blinking and looking Peter and Harley over. Then, she shook her head a little. "What do you think this is?"

Peter followed her pointing to the news, then looked back at her face. He expected to see her furious, out of herself how he could have put himself in danger like this again. But … she smiled, wide and honest. "I," he choked, not really prepared for this turn of events. "I … don't know what you mean?"

Harley groaned and nudged him in the side. "Idiot," he mumbled. "This is why we didn't make a video with you."

Peter flushed a little, not really sure how to react. Sure, May had probably a lot to say to the news and everything, but catching him what was essentially cuddling with another guy in bed? "I mean, I gotta tell you something," Peter tried again.

"No, let me first," May interrupted him and held up a hand. "Before I go off about the danger and everything and how you made Happy promise not to call me: I'm proud of you."

Peter scrambled to sit upright, though not really moving away from Harley. "I can explain – um, what?"

May came closer and stood in front of the bed. "I am proud of you," she repeated. "I hope you know you probably gave me half a dozen heart attacks, but Happy called me an hour ago and I left work earlier to come over. You know, your parents would be proud of you, too."

Peter wiped his eyes as they started to water. May usually never mentioned them; they were dead and it was hurtful for both of them. But hearing this … "Thanks," he choked out and stood up to hug her.

*

Apparently, Happy had called even more people, including Harley's mum, who stood on the patio of the cabin by the lake. The last time Peter had been here was for Mr. Stark's funeral, and the memory was still fresh in his mind. But Pepper managed to smile at them as he and Harley exited the car after May and Happy, who had driven them out here.

Morgan wiggled out of her mum's arms and ran down the stairs. "Uncle Happy!" She yelled and Happy knelt down to catch her jumping into his arms.

"You're getting bigger every day, kid," he laughed.

"You do know you're grounded for forever?" Pam said as she followed slower before pulling Harley into a tight embrace. Peter looked down, not really sure what to do or say. He felt like he should apologize for bringing him into this, but if he was honest, Harley was the one who started all of this.

"Yeah, worth it," he heard Harley mumble and could swear he grinned from ear to ear. "You know that fight I had at summer school last month? We actually stopped a few robbers in Mae's house."

"Oh, you are _so_ grounded," Pam groaned. "I didn't raise you like this – or, wait, I did. Shit."

"Shit?" Morgan piped up. "Mummy, that's your word!"

Pepper laughed, still not moving from her place on the patio. "And who told you that, little miss?"

"Daddy did! He said you made it up!" Morgan took Happy's hand and walked with him back to Pepper.

If Peter wasn't completely wrong, he saw Pepper's smile go sad for a few seconds before she composed herself. "And he was right." He waved over at Peter. "Don't stand around like that, your friends are already here."

Peter frowned. "What?"

"Wouldn't be a victory party without them, would it?"

For a few seconds, he found himself unable to move. Did Pepper really …? He opened his mouth, but no words would form in his brain to be spoken out loud. This had to be a joke. But a look at aunt May told him otherwise. She smiled in the same way Pepper did and put a hand on Peter's back to lead him inside.

"You dork!" MJ yelled as soon as they entered the living room. She leaped over the couch and hugged Peter tightly.

"You're an amazing dork!" Ned joined the hug and for a moment, Peter didn't know what to do with himself. He hadn't fully realized how little he had seen his friends these past weeks up until now, and returned the hugs as much as possible.

"I'm a suffocated dork if you keep that up," he choked, but it sounded nothing like a complaint.

"Let him live, there's enough food for all of you," Pepper commented and Peter could still see her smile as she directed them to the kitchen. Peter's stomach grumbled loudly.

He felt someone taking his hand and looked to the side to see Harley looking back. "You think we did good?"

Ned laughed as MJ pushed him aside to get to the popcorn. Morgan pulled out a chair to climb it and gorge herself on a wrap, spilling the filling on the floor right then and there. May and Pam followed more calmly, in a conversation with Pepper who absentmindedly picked up Morgan and wiped her mouth with the a napkin she picked up from the counter. Happy picked some plates out of the cupboard and handed them to MJ and Ned, who started questioning about all the videos playing on the news stations and if it was him. He didn't deny it, but only shrugged.

"Despite it being your idea basically, I think so," Peter answered and intertwined their fingers.

They joined their family on their quest for food and only took a few minutes to go outside when Theodora called Harley and demanded answers. "Still mad you ditched us," she yelled at them but smiled nonetheless. "But you idiots still managed not to get killed."

Harley laughed in his sister's face. "Yeah, you're obviously doing _much_ better than us, what with your icy boyfriend."

Theodora turned all shades of red in a matter of seconds. "I'm hanging up now."

"I don't want to interrupt," Pepper said and almost made them jump. She stepped out on the patio. "Can I talk to you before you leave for Rose Hill again?"

Harley raised his eyebrows at her, then looked at Peter. "I guess?"

"Alone?"

*

The thought of Harley leaving for Tennessee made Peter's stomach turn. He knew this had to happen eventually. The summer was almost over and school would start again in a few days. But he wasn't ready to say goodbye. They still hadn't even talked about whatever their relationship was now! And when would they see each other again?

"Hey, what's going on?" Ned asked and nudged him.

Peter blinked and looked at his friend. He sat between Ned and MJ on the couch with Morgan sleeping on his lap, probably even drooling on his shirt. They were the last ones in the living room. "I don't know," Peter mumbled. Despite his darker thoughts, he still kept on smiling. "Guess I'll have to get used to not being a refugee anymore?"

"Yeah, long-distant relationships can suck," MJ commented and shrugged. "But you'll get over it."

"Don't worry, I bet you can make it work," Ned agreed.

Peter laughed a little. "And I still got you guys."

But they weren't Harley. Peter loved them to death and he would give his life if it meant Ned and MJ could be safe. Over and over again if necessary. But they weren't the guy he kissed and fell in love with even more over the summer. And he couldn't help his throat tightening at the thought of leaving that behind.

*

But the morning came and Happy had organized a quinjet, standing innocently in front of the cabin. Peter had spent the rest of the night on the couch between his friends and Morgan since Harley was nowhere to be found. And now he walked outside with Pam and Pepper as Happy waited in front of the quinjet. Peter only saw them from the kitchen window because he was up by chance, getting a glass of water from the sink.

It didn't take him longer than three seconds to run outside, still barefoot, and shout, "Wait!"

Harley turned around, frowning and just in time so Peter could wrap his arms around him in a tight hug. "Hey, what's going on?" He asked, but Peter still felt him return the hug. "You okay?"

Peter tried blinking the burn in his eyes away, a sure sign tears would follow. "Did you want to leave without saying goodbye?" He whispered, already a little choked up.

"Pete, no," Harley reassured him and put a hand in Peter's hair to stroke it softly. "You know I'd never do that."

"What's going on?" Happy asked.

Peter pulled away a little from the hug, looking at the adults around them and only then registering their confusion. "What?" He asked, then faced Harley again. "I thought you were leaving."

"I …" Harley frowned a little. "Wait, for real?"

"Yeah?"

"I guess he wanted to tell you when you were awake," Pam interrupted them. "He's saying goodbye. I have a job in Rose Hill and I can't just take extended vacation." She put a hand on Peter's shoulder and smiled at him in that kind of way only aunt May usually managed.

Now completely confused, Peter looked from one adult to another and then at Harley. He pulled away from Harley's embrace and Pam's hand. "What?"

"I'm staying in New York," Harley finally managed to put the messy and jumbled thoughts in Peter's mind together. "Pepper offered me a job. You remember my news feed?"

"I … I guess, yeah." All the heroes on Harley's screen, and the talk of Rocket the Raccoon and everything came back to him. "What about it?"

"Ross has been up my ass about this kind of stuff for months now," Pepper explained. She rolled her eyes. "Really dramatic and everything since he can't push for a renewal of the Sokovia Accords anymore. So we made a deal; I'll get the heroes who want on a team and we're working as an independent unit, not supervised by a UN panel but rather … taking suggestions, I guess."

Peter's mouth dropped open. "What?"

Pepper chuckled. "That's what Ross said when I laid down my terms and conditions."

"Best part," Harley piped up. "She wants me to join, too. Base of operations is going to be the new Avengers Compound. We're going with _Iron Lad_ for me, by the way."

"But," Peter shook his head. "What about MIT?"

Harley laughed right in his face. And yeah, okay, some things made sense. Probably. In another universe. But Harley had plans! Lots of them! "You think I'd go to MIT when I'm paid being a superhero?"

"That's oversimplifying it." Pam sighed.

"And we wanted to extend that invitation to you, too, today," Pepper added. "I know you denied joining the Avengers once –"

"You _fucking_ idiot!" Harley lightly slapped him on the back of his head. "You what?"

"– but we'd hope you'd change your mind. Of course your education will also be cared for."

"Aunt May will lose her mind," Peter quietly breathed.

But Pepper shook her head immediately. "Oh, no. She'd be glad you join the Young Avengers Initiative and finally get your work-school-life balanced out."

"Also I guess I'm shitty at long-distance relationships," Harley added. Then he seemed to realize what he just said, because his cheeks turned a bright red. "I mean, I would be, but if you – I know we haven't talked about that, but … I mean I'd be down to stay and try and …"

Peter still couldn't believe just how lucky he was. All those information was a bit much to take in all at once, but he could wrap his head around the most important things; Harley would stay. He would get to be an Avengers. They both had that chance now. And they could do so much good, just like they wanted, without fear of governments hunting them and they could be _together_.

"Of course your superhuman boyfriend wants you to stay." Peter practically jumped into Harley's arms, hugging him and barely able to kiss him because he wanted to smile so wide all the time. And Harley kissed him back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so. This is the longest fic I've finished so far and I love that fact. But also I'm kind of sad because … well, it ended. But this isn't Supernatural, so I'll end it at the best point.
> 
> Also thanks to everyone who commented and gave kudos and basically motivated me to write as fast as I've never done it before (including my roommate, of course, because well … she's my roommate). That means so much to me! <3


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